


i could be your home

by nicheinhischest



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Shelter AU, addt'l ships and notes inside, cisgirl!Liam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-15 05:30:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 51,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2217531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicheinhischest/pseuds/nicheinhischest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall touches his cheek, careful, and Zayn can't remember a time when he wasn't waiting for this. Or that's what it feels like, anyway: like he's spent a good portion of his life standing at the edge of a cliff, toeing the line between being told who he was and knowing that the assumption was wrong somehow, between straight and -</p><p>And whatever Option B is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue: colors run prime, paint a picture so bright

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo right! AN AMERICAN AU, BECAUSE THAT'S ALL I'M GOOD FOR lol. This started out as a movie-turned-fic idea based in part on [Shelter](http://youtu.be/HFw5oUmlYtA). You can look up a summary, but this veers away from it pretty heavily beyond the basic setting.
> 
> **ACTUAL NOTES!** so, obviously in this, Harry and Niall are older. Liam is also a cisgender girl. The first part is a "four years previous" sort of thing, but everything after that is set in the "present". **PAST/MINOR SHIPS INCLUDE: Zayn/Liam, Niall/Bressie, Niall/Harry, Niall/Josh.** Also, while I felt confident writing about hiding your sexuality + not being white and/or white-passing + growing up in a lower-middle class neighborhood because those are all things I've experienced firsthand, I don't really have any experience wrt Muslim culture. I don't want to ignore a part of Zayn's identity, though, so I've referenced what I hope was appropriate for me as someone who does not practice. If you have any suggestions or criticisms for me for any of this, I'm more than willing to listen and make adjustments!
> 
> **Scattered throughout are potential warnings for:** racism, classism, misogyny, Islamophobia, homophobia (+ internalized homophobia/self-hate). A good chunk of an age difference between Zayn and Niall. Smoking and drinking is featured pretty heavily - for the most part, it's recreational, but there's a scene early on with Niall that reads a bit like self-medication. If you think I should add anything else, please don't hesitate to lmk.
> 
>  
> 
> [1d voice] MASSIVE THANK YOU to Moosk, who could not beta entirely this time, but who I alwaysalwaysalways appreciate no matter what, and to [Lindsay](http://archiveofourown.org/users/icecreamsocialist), who was my sounding board for practically every plot point. Title is from "Wait Wait Wait" by Hanni El Khatib. Enjoy (???????? HOPEFULLY!!!), and that is all for notes for this one, I promise haha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zayn plants his chin on Liam's shoulder when she turns back around - he’s shorter than her still, now that Niall can see, it’s actually kind of hilarious - and Niall can’t help it, wants to fuck around a little. He waits for the bridge, then flicks the hair out of his eyes, exaggeratedly licks his top lip and blows a kiss. Liam laughs, ducks her head to tuck her face into Zayn’s shoulder; Niall waggles his eyebrows at Zayn and keeps on playing. 
> 
> Zayn never stops staring, after that.

* * *

The bar is packed to the brim. 

Niall grins, wild and unrestrained, because Harry - despite struggling with stage fright that manifests itself in the form of helplessly spewed chunks minutes before every gig - is actually a social media wünderkind, and always manages to get the word out to _just_ the right kind of people.

This night is no different: the place is filled with eager twenty-somethings, beers in hand and eyes on the stage, ready for the mishmash of popindiepunk that is Your Best Bet. They look like the kind of crowd that _participates_ , the kind that’ll dance and laugh and throw back the lyrics of the few demo tracks Niall and his friends have managed to release to a steady, growing number of listeners over the years.

Niall’s doing some last minute fine-tuning of his guitar - they’re due to start in a few minutes, and he should really go look for Harry soon. He shoots Josh a thumbs up from where he’s sitting in front of his drums, absentmindedly tapping his sticks on his knees. 

Josh smiles, flicks his tongue out obscenely, just as Niall hears an all-too-familiar voice say, “Bro!”

Louis’ in front of him when Niall turns, bouncing up eagerly on the toes of his shoes with a wicked grin on his face. Niall hops carefully off the stage (really, just a three-inch elevated platform, but _whatever_ , you have to start somewhere, right?), arm outstretched to give him a hug.

“What’re you doing here!” He ruffles Louis’ hair. They’ve only seen each other on a handful of occasions since Niall graduated three years ago, and he swears Louis looks like a different kid each time. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

“Fuck you,” Louis says cheerfully. “I should be pissed at you for not telling me you were in town, dickhead.”

“Ah, one night only,” Niall says, and gestures around the bar. “Clearly we are back by popular demand. This is just the first of many a skeevy drinking hole we’re playing at this month. Where’re the other musketeers?”

“Here,” someone says, and Niall cants his head to the left of the stage. There’s Liam, definitely Liam, Niall would know that curly hair anywhere, even if it _has_ been a while since he’s seen it. She darts an anxious glance around the grody bar, with Zayn not far behind, shouldering himself past a group of people stood crowded at the front, a glass of beer held high in one hand and something that’s probably a Jack and Coke in the other.

“Lima Bean!” Niall crows fondly, arm still slung around Louis’ neck. “You grew, you’re almost as tall as Louis now!”

She looks down, tucks a short curl behind her ear. “You saw me last Christmas, Niall.”

“Right, right.” Niall tightens his hold around Louis’ neck - a friendly headlock, mostly because Niall missed picking on him, until Louis bites his forearm without warning. “ _Ow_ \- fucker! I play with that arm! Zayn, my man,” he lets his guitar hang off the strap to rub at the teeth indents on his forearm. “Tell me one of those is for me and I’ll love you forever.”

“Ha.” Zayn jerkily offers the beer over, and it spills over onto his knuckles. “Oops, shit - yeah, here, I got - you. Um. Hi, Niall.”

Niall takes the proffered drink, raises it in silent thanks and chugs half of it down in one go. He’s not entirely sure how Zayn managed it, given that he’s still got a sort of frightened hedgehog kind of vibe, face-wise. But then again - the floor of this place is sticky enough that one of Harry’s feet popped clear out of his boot earlier, and they’re getting paid in onion rings and burgers, so. A shithole bar probably doesn’t card kids, right?

“Hi, Zayn,” he says. “You and Liam just _dying_ to see us play, too?”

“Yeah, well, Louis wouldn’t shut the fuck up about it.” Zayn rolls his eyes, but it’s nothing less than fond. He lifts his chin towards his best friend, smiling, and teases, “Couldn’t _wait_ to see his big brother again.”

“Step-brother,” Louis and Niall say, on cue, and an arm snakes low across Niall’s waist.

“Hey,” Josh says, ducking in to bite at his neck. “Harry’s still dry heaving in the bathroom, said we better fucking start soon or his stage fright’ll turn into a game of ‘What’d Styles Have For Dinner Today.’” He adds a silent hello to Louis and Co. with a jerk of his chin, steals Niall’s beer out from under him and spins away to head backstage. 

Niall jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “Duty calls. You’ll be here ‘til the set’s over? Was just gonna stay at a hotel, but maybe I’ll head home for the night, after.”

“Yeah,” Louis says, and then adds sheepishly: “If my mom doesn’t call to yell at me, first.” 

Niall clucks and holds a hand over his heart. “Ah, to be fifteen again.”

Louis laughs. “Fuck you, asshole. You’re _barely_ twenty, not fifty -”

“Good luck!” Zayn blurts, and when Niall and Louis turn to look at him, he coughs awkwardly and takes a too-quick sip of his drink. He misses his mouth by a mile, and the Coke spills onto his shirt instead. 

Niall hides a laugh behind his hand, watches Zayn smear the back of a fist across his mouth and close his eyes. He blindly hands off his glass to Liam. 

“I have to - bathroom.”

He scurries away, ducking past the curtain to get there, and Niall calls out after him: 

“If you see Styles, tell him he can puke his nerves out _onstage_ and we’ll call it performance art!”

* * *

They play a mix of classics and their own shit, and the crowd goes fucking wild for both. Harry’s dead center, sweaty fringe in his eyes, holding onto his mic stand like a well-worn lover, eating every second of it it up; Josh is going apeshit on the drums, and every time Niall sneaks a glance at him or plays a few notes in his direction, he flicks his tongue out and winks, which probably means Niall’s in store for at least one enthusiastic semi-public blowjob later.

The stage is too small for Niall’s usual boundless energy - if he does an air split, he’ll knock out Harry _and_ whoever’s standing front row - but he’s off-center with his guitar in his hands and makes up for the lack of space with over-the-top gestures instead, hamming it up as much as he can without getting cheesy.

Midway through their set, he finds his step-brother. Louis’ leaning against the wall at the far end of the room with Liam and Zayn next to him. Zayn’s got his arms around Liam’s waist, and in between songs, she turns in close, says something that makes Zayn smile, makes him kiss her, which is new, Niall guesses, but not entirely surprising.

(It’s been the three of them for as long as Niall can remember, back when Niall’s dad and Louis’ mom had only just started dating, and it’s been Liam’n’Zayn even longer than _that_ , far as Niall knows. Parents probably paired them off together at birth.)

Zayn plants his chin on her shoulder when she turns back around - he’s shorter than her still, now that Niall can see, it’s actually kind of hilarious - and Niall can’t help it, wants to fuck around a little. 

He waits for the bridge, then flicks the hair out of his eyes, exaggeratedly licks his top lip and blows a kiss.

Liam laughs, ducks her head to tuck her face into Zayn’s shoulder; Niall waggles his eyebrows at Zayn and keeps on playing. 

Zayn never stops staring, after that.

* * *

“But _why_ do I have to go again?”

“Because my dad’s got that stupid ‘no significant others staying over’ rule that apparently still applies even after I turned eighteen and moved out, so you need to be gone before he wakes up,” Niall says, barely above a whisper, and presses Josh up against the door anyway, hand smoothing down his chest ‘til his fingers come to a rest at the top of Josh’s jeans. 

He teases, “Got a gig tonight, though. Could get you backstage if you play your cards right.”

“Yeah?” Josh grins, quick and bright. “Heard the drummer’s pretty hot.”

“Eh,” Niall shrugs, and then yelps when Josh punches him in the shoulder. “I’m kidding!” he hisses, laughing, and reaches up to palm Josh’s jaw. “Kidding, kidding.”

“Asshole,” Josh tells him, kissing him once, and turns to open the massive double oak door that leads down onto the driveway. “I’ll see you later.”

Niall leans against the jamb, watches until Josh’s car reaches the private security gate so Niall can hit the buzzer to let him out. When he shuts the door again and turns, he finds Zayn stood in the entryway to the kitchen, eyes wide.

Clad in _Pokémon_ boxers and a borrowed _Iron Man_ shirt that’s undoubtedly Louis’, he’s clutching a bowl of cereal in his hands and only seems to react when Niall gives a cheerful, “Morning!”

Zayn looks down at his bowl. “I - um. I was - I woke up too early, so I was looking for milk and it - it wasn’t in the fridge?”

“Oh - shit, sorry,” Niall passes the bannister to the second floor, brushes past Zayn and heads beyond the kitchen into the nook to grab the carton he’d taken out earlier. “Made coffee, but we didn’t have any cream. Forgot to put it back.”

He drops the carton onto the island in the middle of the kitchen, hauls himself up onto the counter. Zayn pads in on soft feet, carefully pours milk into his bowl and puts the carton away. He doesn’t speak again until he’s got spoonful of Cap’n Crunch in his mouth. 

“So, Josh.” He swallows, tugs out one of the stools so he can sit at the island, Niall’s knee inches from his bowl. “Is. Like. Your boyfriend?”

“Uh,” Niall chuckles, scrubs a hand through the hair wilting onto his forehead. “I mean, I like him. He likes me. We’re not in a real big rush to enter into a commitment ceremony or anything.”

“I’m not saying,” Zayn’s brows knit together, and he stabs his spoon into the milk and cereal so it splashes onto the island. “I wasn’t saying that.”

“Only joking,” Niall says, gently. “Just - don’t really like the serious stuff.” 

Zayn does his best confused hedgehog look at that - it’s even better now, with the bedhead and half-asleep air every time he blinks puffy, bleary eyes at Niall. “But you do, don’t you? Don’t think I missed you and Liam last night.”

Niall leans into his space. “Does our music get you hot and heavy, or what?”

Zayn’s bare foot slips off the stool rung, and he knocks into the edge of the island, hand clutching his spoon tight. When he laughs, it’s a pitch too high. “We’ve only - um. We’ve only been dating since January -”

“January! It’s _September_. That’s like, five years in high school time.”

“Oh, is it,” Zayn says dully, and Niall nods, solemn, eyes slipping shut briefly.

“Yeah, it’s all very science-y. You wouldn’t understand.”

He’s justly rewarded with an eyeroll for that one, and he grabs the cereal box and stuffs a hand in to jam a fistful into his mouth. “She your first girlfriend?” he asks, and Zayn nods, eyes locked on the milk in his bowl.

“Girls are great,” Niall says, and then stifles a laugh when Zayn squints at him. “I didn’t say I had hands-on experience with them or anything, just think they’re great.” 

“But not as great as guys,” Zayn says, careful, and Niall absentmindedly wiggles in his seat, stuffs another helping of cereal into his mouth. “Because you’re gay.”

Niall gasps, mouth full, mock-aghast. 

“What! _Who told you!_ ”

Zayn’s laughing before he even finishes - quiet, but he is - and Niall flicks a piece of cereal at him. 

A companionable silence passes then until Zayn says, “Hey, um. So can I ask you something?”

Niall slowly stops chewing. He sets the cereal box down next to him, dusts his hands off on his pajamas and wipes his mouth. “Yeah,” he says, swinging his legs out. “Yeah, you can ask me anything.”

“Why... um. How come -...”

He pauses, and Niall picks at a hangnail without looking away from Zayn, who sets his spoon down purposefully. 

“Why do you play in dive bars?” he finally asks, and - oh. Not entirely what Niall was expecting, but he can deal. “I mean, you’re barely getting paid to play places like that, aren’t you? You could _buy_ a recording studio, if you wanted.”

“Well, I just - I want to do it on my own, y’know?” Niall hops off the counter, leans back with his elbows planted on the edge. “I don’t wanna weasel my way up without even working for it. I want to pay my dues, or whatever.”

Zayn nods along, lifting his spoon back up, and Niall studies the tiny puddle of milk it leaves on the granite with a smile. “It’s dumb. Probably. Definitely. And I know it’s easier for me to say shit like that when I’ve got a trust fund to back me up if I fail or fall on my ass, but I - I don’t think I could fully appreciate it if I knew I bought my way in.”

“I think you just want something to struggle with,” Zayn says through a mouthful of Cap’n Crunch, adds, “rich boy blues,” offhand like he’s not even thinking about it, and then pauses mid-bite when Niall barks out a laugh. “Um. Shit. That was rude.”

“Probably true, though,” Niall shrugs. “Y’know like, rich kid with issues wants to find himself. What else is new.”

“ _Tale as old as time_ ,” Zayn singsongs, deliberately mocking now, and Niall laughs.

“You’re pretty funny before nine in the morning, Malik. We should do this again sometime.” He sneaks an elbow out so it bumps Zayn’s forearm resting on the island counter. “Make a date of it.”

Zayn accidentally dribbles milk out of his mouth. He grins, a little embarrassed, and wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. 

"Um,” he says with a small laugh. “Sure.”

And the thing is - the thing is, Niall _knows_ , alright:

Zayn laughs too hard at his jokes when _Niall_ doesn’t even think they’re that funny, and he gets flustered whenever Niall so much as slings a friendly arm around his shoulder or aims a smile his way. It was only after Niall came out in high school that he even realized there was a whole lot more to it than some weird hero-worship thing, and it’s _adorable_ in that way kids with harmless crushes sometimes are. 

So, yeah. Niall knows. 

He’s just not sure if Zayn knows, too.


	2. it won't ever get old

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niall’s shoulders square a touch, and his eyes track slow down Zayn’s body and back up, before he says, “Hey," and, right, that’s definitely a loaded _hey_ , the kind of tone reserved for hazy bars and raucous house parties, and Niall Horan is on the cusp of _hitting on him_.
> 
> Then Harry chokes on his milkshake as his eyes widen in belated recognition, and Niall’s grin flickers; a wrinkle comes and goes between his brows before his mouth parts and his elbow slips off the edge of the wooden tabletop. “Shit - um. _Zayn_? I - wow,” he says. And then, with a shake of his head: 
> 
> “I mean, um. Hey. _Wow_. You, uh,” he laughs. “You... grew up.”

* * *

**Doniya**  
Need you to chauffeur girls around/babysit tomorrow

Zayn frowns down at his phone, cigarette caught between his lips. 

**Zayn**  
I work til close tmrw, why can’t u do it?

Almost immediately, he gets back _Interviews all day._ and another moment later, _Get Liam to pick up your shift, you know she won’t mind._ Zayn sighs, flicks his half-finished cigarette against the brick wall of the alley diner he’s been loitering in.

_We broke up_

_What’s that, second time this yr? Jesus Z you know one day she won’t actually take you back, right?_

Zayn wants to text back _What the hell do you know_ , but only just refrains. He only has a fifteen minute break, he’s not really looking to spend half of it arguing with his sister. She’s right, anyway. 

He sends back a _Fine._ and hopes that the period at the end is fuck you enough.

He dials Liam in the next breath, doesn’t have to wait for more than a couple of rings before she answers with a happy, “ _Hey!_ ”

“How much would you hate me if I asked you to pick up a shift for me tomorrow?”

“ _Hm_.” She feigns an unimpressed tone, but Zayn can still hear the smile in her voice. “ _First you dump me, then you make me work on my day off?_ ”

“I didn’t dump you, it was mutual,” Zayn turns, scuffs his boot against the wall of the diner. “We agreed it was mutual.”

“ _Oh, no, I lied, I've been crying all day_ ,” she starts offhandedly, and then sounds far away when she laughs. “ _Your sister just texted me, by the way. ‘My brother’s a fucking idiot. Say no when he crawls back next time, please.’ That’s nice of her, she’s totally on my side_.”

“Oh my God, will you _please_ tell her it was mutual,” he says, and he can hear the little taps of her replying.

“ _Crisis averted_ ,” she says. And: “ _What is it - interviews, again?_ ”

Zayn aims a kick at the wall, pulls a Sharpie out of his back pocket to doodle idly on the brick. “Yeah.”

“ _How’s it looking?_ ”

“Don’t know, but you know Doniya. Always has faith something’ll work out eventually.” 

Liam hums in agreement. “ _Alright, I’ll take your shift_ -”

“Thank you -”

“ _But you have to come with me to the beach later_.”

“What!” Zayn lets his head fall back with a groan. “No, you know I hate that shit.”

“ _It’s just a bunch of kids from my class, I think some people from your year should be there, too_ -”

“Even more reason not to go,” Zayn mutters.

“ _There’s free food and beer_ ,” Liam tells him, adamant. “ _And I promise I won’t make you go into the water at all_.”

“ _Fine_ ,” Zayn says, angrily scribbling. “Fine, but I feel like this is not a fair trade at all.”

“ _Free beer is always a fair trade_ ,” Liam says with a smile, and Zayn smears a thumb across the drawing. 

“You didn’t really cry, did you?” he asks her then, and she laughs. 

“ _No. Swear. I mean, it’s what we decided, right? We can’t keep treating each other like back up plans, Zayn. It’s not fair to either of us_.”

“I still love you,” Zayn tells her quietly, and Liam makes a soft, contented sound in response.

“ _I love you, too_ ,” she says. “ _We’re just not, like. In love anymore. And it’s better this way, isn’t it?_ ”

“Just feels weird, I guess. Actually being over.” He keeps on scuffing the toe of his boot against the brick and shrugs, even though Liam can’t see it. “Never dated anyone but you, what if I’m bad at it?”

Liam laughs yet again. “ _Zayn. You were never a bad boyfriend. I’ll talk to you later, alright?_ ”

Zayn says, “Yeah, later,” and hits END, is tucking his phone back into his pocket when he hears a laugh that has him fumbling the Sharpie still in his hand. He can’t see who it belongs to just yet, too far down the alley to see the front of the diner from here, so there _is_ a chance his mind’s got it wrong, but even then - 

Even then, no amount of time could make Zayn forget that laugh.

He stuffs the Sharpie back into his pocket alongside his phone, takes a few cautious steps forward out of the alley. 

And there’s Niall. Sitting at the broken-down picnic table in front of the diner with a burger and fries, grin plastered on his face, laughing at someone - not just someone, _Harry_ , of course it’s Harry, sitting cross-legged atop the beat-up table, sucking down what looks like a chocolate milkshake. 

Zayn wants to smile, but checks himself; he takes another step and calls out a hesitant, “Niall?”

He looks up. And there’s this moment - this moment where Niall’s shoulders square a touch, where his eyes track slow down Zayn’s body and back up, before he says, “Hey.”

Zayn’s brain conveniently forgets to tell his lungs to _inhale_ because, right, Niall is Niall and he greets everybody like they’re his best fucking friend, so who’s to say he even remembers who Zayn is, but also - also -

That’s definitely a loaded _hey_ , the kind of tone reserved for hazy bars and raucous house parties, and Niall Horan (Louis’ step-brother, and the guy who has been a massive, unwanted itch under Zayn’s skin since for-fucking-ever) is on the cusp of _hitting on him_.

Then Harry chokes on his milkshake as his eyes widen in belated recognition, and Niall’s grin flickers; a wrinkle comes and goes between his brows before his mouth parts and his elbow slips off the edge of the wooden tabletop. “Shit - um. _Zayn_?”

“Uh,” Zayn knocks his snapback up and scratches at his hair, head aimed down at the crumbling sidewalk as he glances up. “Yeah. Hey.”

“Wow,” Niall says. And then, with a shake of his head: “I mean, um. Hey. _Wow_. You, uh,” he laughs. “You... grew up.”

Harry snorts so hard it sounds like he’s pulled something.

Zayn bites down on a smile and walks until he’s at the end of their table. He might be shy about a lot of things, but he knows - he knows how he looks now: knows four years is a lot of time and a lot of change. Knows he’s shot up a handful of inches, finally taller than Liam, though not by much. Knows that the leftover youthful roundness in his face is long gone, has turned his cheekbones sharp and, most days, rough with stubble.

“Look at you,” Harry says, tone bordering on delighted, taking in Zayn’s secondhand Docs, his skinny jeans, the way the tank he’s wearing - covered in old spray paint stains and ripped at the hip, because the craft store across from the diner doesn’t have a dress code beyond “clothed” - is loose over the jut of his collarbones. It shows off the tattoo sleeve he’s slowly starting to work on that’s just beginning to snake up his right arm, and Harry finishes, smiling winningly: 

“Adulthood has been good to you, huh, Zayn Malik.”

Harry hasn’t changed at all, then.

“Um,” Zayn chuckles. “Hi, Harry. ...Niall,” he adds again, softer, and watches Niall distractedly shove a handful of fries into his mouth. 

He pushes off the tabletop then, swings his legs up and over the rickety bench and Zayn’s got an armful of Niall in the next moment, warm and familiar. 

“Dude,” Niall laughs lightly, pats his back a few times and pulls away to look at him. “What the fuck’s up, how have you been?”

Harry’s on him next, and Zayn talks over his shoulder. “Been good, yeah. You two?”

“On a self-imposed break,” Harry says, hopping up onto the picnic table again and stealing a bite of Niall’s burger. “Needed a quiet place to work some music shit out, figured home was best.” 

He glances at Niall, who doesn’t look back. 

“Right,” Zayn replies, faint. “Working - working on a solo album, right?”

Niall cocks his head, a little disbelieving, careful smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “You know about that?”

 _I know everything_ , Zayn wants to say, but that’s heading into dangerous territory, so he keeps his fucking mouth shut and shrugs. Harry volleys a look between them, and Niall shoves his hands in his pockets, sways back a half-step and clears his throat awkwardly. 

“So!” he says. “Where’s my step-bro?”

“School. Got finals in a few weeks.” 

“Oh, did you finish yours already?” Harry asks, and Zayn swallows back a laugh and lets his gaze drift to the craft supply store across the street.

“I don’t go to school.”

Harry scoffs. “What? I totally thought you would’ve left this town first chance you got, Malik. You definitely had the talent.”

Zayn resists rolling his eyes, but only just. He knows Harry’s heart is in the right place, even if the the way he grew up isn’t. “Yeah, well. Life doesn’t always work out the way it should - I have to get back to work,” he nods towards the craft store, checks Niall again as he turns on heel. “Later.”

He’s still staring Zayn down like he’s an alien, gives a somewhat dazed, “Yeah, see you around.” 

Then he blinks, and shakes his head again as if to clear it. “Soon - serious, bro. I’ll, uh - I’ll get your number from Louis or something, it’ll give me a chance to bug the shit out of him, beg him to come back to town before I leave again, at least.”

Zayn takes a few backwards steps, licks his lips and smiles. “Sure, Niall.”

He’s crossing the street when Niall cups his hands around his mouth to shout, “I swear, Malik! Gimme one phone call with Lou and I’ll be knocking on your door in no time!”

“Like you’d ever slum it in my hood longer than an hour, _rich boy_ ,” Zayn calls back, and the last thing he sees before he heads back inside is Niall grinning wide, middle fingers in the air.

Zayn’s still smiling when his shift ends two hours later.

* * *

He's got a bit of time to kill after work before he has to bike to Liam's and hitch a ride to the coast, so he heads straight to the thrift shop a few blocks over, flicks through the hangers of clothes as the sun slowly sets outside. And it figures that he doesn’t notice someone next to him until they speak, nearly jumps out of his skin in the process when he hears a loud, “Boo!”

“Jesus - _fuck_ ,” Zayn whispers, hand clutched to his chest. “You _asshole_.”

Niall laughs, leans over the clothing rack Zayn’s stuck behind to watch Zayn catch his breath. “Fancy meeting you here,” he says.

“Hm.” Zayn feels a smile tug at the corner of his mouth as he wills his heart to get back under control. “You stalking me?”

“What? No.” He rests his chin on a section of empty bar between hangers, tilts his head towards the back of the store. Zayn just catches Harry disappear into one of the changing rooms. “Harold likes to thrift. Swear he’s actually a sixty year old grandmother with a penchant for cats. And knitting.”

“Or a twenty-two year old with a tragic affinity for fedoras,” Zayn says with a snort, and flicks through the rack some more. “Rich people thrifting never ceases to amaze.”

“Your trust fund brat judgment is both thoroughly accurate and duly noted,” Niall says, and pushes up on his toes so he can lean over the rack to stage-whisper: “If I told you the shirt I’m wearing was bought at one of these places, would you hold it against me?”

Niall arches a brow. “Actually, don’t answer that. I’ll just picture you holding _something_ against me. Not necessarily clothing. The clothing is optional.”

“ _Niall_ ,” Zayn laughs, exasperated, and stops sorting through the clothes to look at him. Niall swoops around one end of the rack to stand nearly toe to toe with him, leaves a hand on the top bar and shrugs.

“Sorry,” he says, and sounds anything but.

The world tilts; Zayn grabs hold of the bar, too, to steady himself. “You know,” he lifts his chin, just a touch. “You don’t really intimidate me. I’m not fifteen anymore.”

There’s a beat of silence. Niall half-steps in, hand skating across the bar to fold over Zayn’s. “Believe me, Zayn,” he says. “I know you’re not a kid anymore.” 

His fingers press in at Zayn’s wrist and he rolls his eyes deprecatingly, smile small and flickering. “Kinda wish I could still manage the whole intimidation thing, though. It’d definitely make me less nervous.” 

And Zayn can’t help it - he twitches his thumb out so it shifts under Niall’s palm. He thinks maybe Niall’s smiles spreads wider.

“Why are you nervous in the first place?”

Niall takes a quick breath in and laughs. “No reason,” he answers.

“Hey.”

At Harry’s voice, Zayn snatches his hand back. They both turn to look at him - he’s got on an electric blue velvet coat down to his knees and a scarf wrapped around his hair like a headband. “Too much?”

“Bro, please don’t make me burn your clothes,” Niall tells him sadly, and Harry nods.

“Thank you, peanut gallery. ...Zayn?”

“Um... you’re kind of giving off Mick Jagger vibes,” he says, and Niall’s groaning before he even finishes his sentence.

“Don’t _tell_ him that, he’ll never take it off.”

Harry clicks his tongue; he’s near enough that he can cup Niall’s chin and says, “And you’d hate me being clothed all the time, wouldn’t you, Ni?”

“Not like you’re ever wearing that much around the house anyway, Harry,” Niall replies, leaning into the sloppy kiss Harry plants on his cheek. Then he grins - big, happy, cheeks dimpling, looks all at once ten years younger - and hurries off to the front register, tripping only once in his rush. 

“I’m buying this!”

“I’m _burning_ it!” Niall calls after him, and he’s still laughing when Zayn sniffs, feeling suddenly awkward in the face of easy affection. 

“So.” He sways back a step, lets his eyes drift towards the front of the store where Harry’s leaning on the counter, engaged in an easy sort of flirtation he’s undoubtedly perfected over the years with the middle-aged attendant behind the register who’s folding his purchases. “You and Harry are. Like.”

He doesn’t bother finishing, but Niall gets the gist. He shrugs, says, “Nah, you know, me and H both like the casual thing, it’s not a big deal.”

“Casual,” Zayn intones. “Yeah, right.”

The stilted, awkward silence between them after that lasts a second too long, and then Zayn clears his throat, rubs at the nape of his neck. “I should - I should go, got a thing tonight with Liam.”

Niall smiles briefly before nodding and glancing away. “Right, yeah. I'll see you around.”

“I, uh,” Zayn steps around him, laugh half-formed like he can’t even be fucked to feign it. “Bye.”

(He manages to slip past without Harry noticing, and spares himself the briefest moment of relief.)

* * *

Zayn hates the beach. 

He hates that there’s always an overabundance of people unless you’re in a really secluded spot that hasn’t been overrun with high school kids yet, and he hates how the water is always freezing fucking cold no matter the season, and he _especially_ hates the way sand will pick every crevice on your body to find a home in.

But mostly - mostly, he hates this: 

Sitting in the back of Liam’s hatchback with a lukewarm beer in his hand, pretending he’s interested in whatever conversation is happening around him - graduating seniors talking about how _amazing_ college is gonna be in the fall which, like. No thanks.

“You tag shit, right?” one of the guys asks him - he’d been in a couple of Zayn’s P.E. classes, Zayn thinks his name is Justin - and Zayn squints a little and takes a long pull of his beer before answering:

“I do street art, yeah.”

“Sweet,” Justin says. “So if I paid you like, fifty bucks would you fuck up someone’s car for me? I’d do it myself but, like. Can’t wind up with a dumbass vandalism charge right before I start school, my dad would kill me, and it’s not like you got anything coming up you have to watch out for, right?”

He laughs, and thumps Zayn in the chest; Zayn idly daydreams about smashing the beer bottle upside his head.

“Yeah, no,” he says, setting the bottle down next to him, instead. He hops off the back end of Liam’s car. “I have to go do...” he trails off, can’t even think of a good enough excuse except, “Something. Over there. Away from here.”

As he walks away, he hears a snide, “The fuck’s his problem?” and he shoves his hands in the pockets of his jacket and steps out onto the sand.

* * *

There’s a dune a few hundred yards away from the party, and Zayn carefully climbs down, boots occasionally sinking into the sand. When he finally manages to hit even land, beads of sweat are already trailing down the length of his back and prickling at the nape of his neck, but it’s worth it, for what he finds. 

_This_ side of the beach is completely dead, aside from a shape near the water, far enough away from the barbecue that Zayn’s sure it isn’t another partygoer. Whoever it is has a surfboard propped up next to them, wetsuit rolled down to the waist and what looks like a twelve pack of beer stuffed in the sand next to them. 

It’s only when he's close enough that Zayn even realizes who it is. 

“No fucking way,” he says, too quiet over the sound of waves a few dozen yards ahead to be overheard. And then, louder: “You got a death wish or what, Horan?”

Niall twists around in his seat, offers up a smile when he sees its Zayn. “ _Hey_ ,” he says, a beat too slow. “What d’you mean?”

“There’s rocks in the water on this side,” Zayn says. He’s next to the surfboard now, runs a hand up its side. “Were you seriously gonna -”

“Oh.” Niall blinks up at him. “Nah, was surfing a while ago, just chillin' now.”

“And drinking.” Zayn arches a brow at the handful of empty beer bottles. “Alone. Where’s Harry?”

Niall shrugs. “At my house. Dad and Johannah left in June, they'll be gone 'til September, so it’s empty.”

“Yeah, Louis mentioned that - they’re vacationing in Italy or something, right?”

“Spain, this time. I think.” Niall twists the top off another beer bottle, points up at Zayn. “What’re _you_ doing here? I remember you used to hate the beach.”

“Barbecue thing,” Zayn waves a lazy hand behind him, over the rocks. Niall tips his head back. 

“Ah. Thought I heard music.”

“You should - you should come,” Zayn offers, and Niall gives him a look before laughing. 

“Uh. Don’t think a twenty-three year old hanging around a bunch of barely-graduated kids would be that much fun.”

“Fuck you, it’s fun,” Zayn lies, mostly just to get Niall off his ass and out of the dark. “There’s free booze. And food.”

A thoughtful frown graces Niall’s face. “I do like both of those things.”

“Yeah, I know, so c’mon. Stop wallowing in the fucking dark like a weirdo and come hang out with me.”

Niall barks out a laugh at that, but does haul himself up. “Boy, you sure know how to treat a lady, Zayn.”

“Bite me,” Zayn tosses back, crouching down briefly to collect the case of beer. It feels nearly empty, already. “Where’s your car?”

“Up over the cliff - I bet,” Niall huffs, stumbles as he yanks his surfboard up with one hand to tuck it under his arm, bottle of beer still in the other. “I bet you’re like, seconds away from seppuku via beach umbrella, and you just want me around so you don’t have to suffer in silence.”

Zayn looks over his shoulder as they start their hike up the dune, towards the parking lot. "As long as you're aware."

"Fucking dick," Niall says without heat, and grins.

* * *

They stuff Niall’s board into the back of his four-door, and Zayn waits for him to change out of his wetsuit and into regular clothes before they make the trek back down to the party. He and Niall find two more beers, and then find Liam, in the midst of a massive group huddled by the bonfire, lit up in the nighttime. She sits cross-legged in the sand, laughing at something one of her old teammates - Sophia, Zayn remembers - is saying, doesn’t bat an eyelash when Zayn slumps next to her and tackles her gently.

She falls back onto the sand and laughs, combs a hand through his hair, and Zayn shifts a little, rests on her stomach with his head turned in so he can face her properly. “Look,” he says. “I found a stray.”

Niall pulls a face at Zayn as he pants like a dog in response, and Zayn rolls onto his back the same time Liam’s chest rumbles with laughter from underneath him. She pushes herself onto her elbows and grins up at Niall. 

“Hey, you! What’re you doing here?”

“Music.” Niall gives a vague shrug. “Hopefully won’t be staying long, but I’m home, for now.” There’s a sun-bleached log next to her, and he drags it a little closer to sit down. “ _I_ heard you got an athletic scholarship to play basketball.”

“UConn,” Liam answers with a grin, and a fist pump. “Gonna be a Husky come Fall.”

“Connecticut,” Niall whistles, short and sweet, and picks at the label on his beer bottle. “You gonna do the long distance thing, then?”

“WIth _who_?” Liam asks, and Niall’s brows knit together. He glances down at Zayn, still curled up, half on Liam’s stomach. “Oh - uh. Yeah, that’s not -”

“We broke up,” Zayn says, and if Niall’s surprised, he doesn’t show it. 

“They break up like four times a year, it’s practically a tradition at this point," Sophia says then, leaning into their conversation. Zayn’s already rolling his eyes in response - she’s only teasing, but he still feels an edge of annoyance creep under his skin. “What, it’s true!”

“It’s for real, this time.” Liam reaches out to pinch Sophia’s thigh the same time Zayn lifts his head so she can stand; they walk off together, and as he lets his head fall onto the sand, he hears her voice, trailing off, “Officially over and done, I _told_ you that.”

"Wait, you guys broke up _again_?"

Zayn picks his head up; it’s the guy from the same group before, dropping down a cooler into the bonfire circle now, and _this_ \- this is why Zayn can’t stand going to these things. Why he fucking hated everyone he went to high school with, barring a handful of friends. "What the fuck, dude, Liam's hot. You gotta be a fag if you're giving _that_ up."

Niall laughs behind his beer bottle, shakes his head and rises out of his seat on the log as Zayn's sits up jerkily, practically itching out of his skin in anger because there are _so many things that are wrong with that sentence_ , but he can't make himself say anything beyond a dark, "Fuck you, prick." Justin rolls his eyes, makes a jacking off gesture with his hand and turns back to his friend, Liam and Zayn already forgotten. 

Zayn scrubs the sand out of his hair and scowls in the direction where Niall’s walked off. Something's not right, that much Zayn gets, and without a second thought he finds himself pushing into a stand and snatching a fifth of cheap vodka and a beer from the cooler to follow.

* * *

Niall hasn’t gone far, just walked to the end of the beach where the sand meets the water at high tide, sat with his knees pulled up towards his chest. He’s still got his beer bottle by its neck, and in his other hand, he’s swiping through pictures on his phone.

He doesn’t look up when Zayn stops next to him. "Stole their booze," Zayn says, as a peace offering. "Sorry about," he makes a vague gesture towards the party; they're far enough away now that the sounds are mostly muted by the quiet rush of the ocean instead.

Niall shrugs. "You get used to it."

"Do you?"

Niall pauses, and then laughs softly and plants his beer in the sand, pats the opposite side next to him for Zayn to sit. "You get used to picking and choosing your battles," he explains. "Not really looking to fight with some eighteen year old shitstain tonight who still thinks casual bigotry and misogyny is cute." 

Niall's jaw juts out thoughtfully as Zayn drops down into the sand next to him. "Can only hope someone punches him in the dick, at this point. More than once." He's still looking at his phone, and he squints. "I might be a little drunk, sorry."

"Nah, it's alright. Rich white boy talking to me about social injustices," Zayn drawls, teasing, "just what I want out of a beach barbecue."

"Excuse you," Niall says, glancing at him finally, a hint of a smile tugging at his mouth. "Rich _gay_ white boy."

Zayn chuckles, pushes his forehead against Niall's shoulder for a moment before crossing his legs and nodding down at Niall's phone. "Where're those from?"

"Oh, um." He hits the back key a couple times and angles the phone so Zayn can just make out the album titles - IRELAND, ENGLAND, FRANCE, ITALY, GERMANY. Niall pockets it lifts his shoulders. "Just. Feeling a little nostalgic tonight."

"Is that from when you were on tour?"

"Some of them." He's so quiet, studying the empty space between his knees, and ducks his arms down to pile up sand at his spread feet. "Some of them are after."

He doesn’t offer up anything else; Zayn rolls the beer bottle between his palms and just watches, for a few unguarded moments. “So,” he starts, and Niall glances at him. “Four years.” 

Niall inhales deep, exhales loudly. “Yep.”

“Why’d you come back, this time?”

In the moonlight, Niall smiles - this brief lilt at the corner of his mouth that seems more rueful than anything else. “Harry told you, remember? Music shit.”

“Right,” Zayn says slowly, handing off the vodka. “But what’s the real reason?”

Niall goes quiet for a long time, shoulders hunched whenever a particularly strong wind picks up around them, hands curled up into the sleeves of his hoodie, clutched around the bottle. Then he huffs out a dry laugh, uncaps it and knocks Zayn in the shoulder. “I’m blaming whatever comes out of my mouth on the booze.”

“Drunken emotional spiel imminent, got it,” Zayn says, and Niall’s shoulder hits his again and stays there. 

“I, um. So, you know how I missed Lou’s graduation last year - I still feel shitty about that, by the way -”

“You were _touring_ in _Europe_ ,” Zayn laughs, “Louis wasn’t all that disappointed, just thought it was fucking cool.”

Niall snorts and swigs the liquor, swipes the back of his hand across his mouth as he pulls a face. "Of course he did. Well, so like. The guy we were opening for,” he pauses, and then finishes wryly: “I kinda opened for him in more ways than one.”

“Niall Two,” Zayn says faintly, and then when Niall’s brow wrinkles he shakes his head. “I mean! Breslin. Niall Breslin. ...Bressie? Louis called him Niall Two.”

“Yeah - how’d you know?”

(Zayn has this memory of Louis showing him photos of his step-brother’s trips around Europe, photos of Niall with this hulking mass of a human at his side, and Zayn hadn’t been able to stop thinking about them long after he'd gone home - the photos, or Niall and his - whatever Bressie was -

Hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what they were doing and how they fucked and whether Niall was only into older guys now - and Zayn has this memory of _himself_ , right? Age seventeen and jerking off in the shower, water sluicing _hothothot_ over his neck and back and shoulders, staying in long after his fingers had pruned, until he felt raw, _scalded_ \- ) 

“Lou showed me some of your e-mails.” He smiles weakly. “He was - um. Big.” 

“Fucking massive, right? Built like a goddamn tree trunk,” Niall says, but he sounds fond. “Anyway, it hadn’t started out like that - fucking him. Wanted to, though.” He’s not looking at Zayn anymore, just staring off to the side at nothing in particular while his fingers pick at the label on his beer. “You probably never heard, but he had this _accent_ , Jesus Christ. Only thing I could ever think was ‘I wonder how he sounds when his dick's buried in someone’ - wait, sorry, shit, sorry, is this like, way too much - ?”

Zayn shakes his head and sets down his beer; he flops back onto the sand and, because he is apparently a masochist, says, “Nah, you’re good, bro.”

It’s easier to listen, like this: staring up at the sky instead of Niall’s profile, easier to look for constellations he only half remembers from when he, Liam and Louis went through an astronomy phase in middle school while Niall talks about wanting someone in all the ways he’ll never want Zayn.

There’s the sound of Niall taking a drink again, a long drag, liquid sloshing around in the bottle, before he speaks. "So," he coughs, "shit, Zayn, what the fuck did you steal, lighter fluid? - so, things came to a head midway through tour - we were all plastered that night, and I decided it was as good a time as any to go for it, and...” he down looks over his shoulder, at Zayn, and then lets himself fall back, too. 

He’s pressed all along Zayn’s side now, and shrugs with his shoulders in the sand. “Just started hooking up, after that. And I thought, I thought it was okay. Like, I thought we were just fucking around during the tour and like - don’t get me wrong, Brez is fucking amazing, like anyone would be lucky to date him or,” he laughs, sounds nostalgic over some long gone memory. “Or be held down by him in bed, whatever.”

Zayn shuts his eyes. 

“It didn’t stop after his tour ended - I’m sure you saw from the e-mails. Spent a year fucking around abroad with him, once Harry and Josh went back home, when we decided to take a break as a group. It was fun, but I thought we were on the same page.”

“And what page was that?”

“That it wasn’t anything serious.” Zayn can feel Niall’s head turn next to him, and he tilts his own to meet Niall’s eyes. “That I don’t really ever _do_ serious. You know?”

“I don’t,” Zayn replies. “I’ve dated the same girl on and off since I was fourteen.”

“Yeah, well, not all of us can be serial monogamists, Malik,” Niall tells him, and his gaze sort of - flits over Zayn’s features, from his mouth to his eyes and back again. “You are off now, though, right?”

Zayn turns back towards the sky. “For the last time.” He digs his fingers into the sand. “So, Bressie wanted more and you didn’t?”

“Brez thought it was different,” Niall says, softer now. “Like, he knew how it was, but he thought it would be different that time - that, I don’t know, that _I’d_ be different. And... when the next tour rolled around last year, he asked me to come with him as a kind of... um. Permanent fixture. And I. I couldn't.”

He laughs, and it leaves him like it hurts.

“I really fucked with him. I didn’t mean to, but I did, and he says he still can’t even be friends with me yet and I just. At first, I thought I was fine with it, but I came home and I realized I really, really wasn’t.”

Which is when Zayn realizes: “Harry’s here for moral support.”

“Yeah. Stops me from wallowing in self-pity every time I watch too many episodes of _Say Yes to the Dress_ on Netflix and start drunk-muttering about how I might actually be happy, if I wasn’t so emotionally constipated. But I guess, hey, one good thing came out of it,” he says, though it comes out sardonic. 

“Bad break ups make for great lyric fodder.”

* * *

Zayn nurses the rest of his beer in the time it takes Niall to toss back a _generous_ amount of vodka, and by the time they get back to his car, it’s obvious he’s smashed, fumbling with his keys when he takes them out of his pocket. He watches them fall to the pavement and snorts, leans heavy against the driver’s side door to pick them up. He rests his forehead against the window, breath fogging up the glass when he mumbles, “Pro'lly shouldn’t drive,” and Zayn doesn’t even think before he offers to take Niall home.

"Yeah?" Niall blinks, and then grins. "What about Liam?"

"She picked me up on my bike earlier and drove us, she's the DD tonight so she hasn't been drinking anyway. I can head down to the beach to let her know real quick." He steps closer as he speaks, carefully plucks the keys from Niall's clumsy fingers. “Get in the passenger seat. I’ll just grab my bike and we can go. I know the way to your place better than you do."

He waves a hand when Niall still doesn’t move. “C’mon, get in.” 

Niall drunkenly salutes him. 

“Aye aye, cap’n.”

* * *

Niall barely remembers the keypad to open the front gate to the house, and he's a terror to get up the driveway but Zayn manages, somehow; he has to alternate between ringing the doorbell, banging the knocker, and holding Niall up for a handful of minutes before the sound of footsteps finally approaches from inside. The door swings open, and Harry takes one look at Niall and Zayn before he smiles. 

“Aw, hi honey, you’re home.”

“Zayn's's great friend,” Niall says, stumbling forward with Zayn’s hands at his hips, following him in. “Zayn's zarms are great. Zayn’s zarms?” He laughs and doubles back, crooks his own arm around Zayn’s neck for a drunken hug. “Zanzibar?” 

“I don’t remember you leaving the house shiftfaced,” Harry muses, and Zayn gently pushes Niall in his direction with a grimace.

"He'd already killed a twelve pack by himself when I found him, and I - _might_ have offered up a bottle of vodka -”

“It’s fine,” Harry wraps an arm around Niall’s waist, waves a hand for Zayn to close the door and come with them towards the living room. “Not like he has anywhere to be tomorrow, he can sleep it off all day.”

“Brez won’answer when I call,” Niall mumbles, face buried in Harry’s neck. They sit down on the sofa - or, Harry tries to set Niall down, only Niall latches onto his neck and won’t let him leave, makes them both flop down onto it in a twist of limbs. “S’fucking ignoring me, H.”

“That’s because his big, dumb Irish heart hurts a little,” Harry replies gently, disentangling himself. “It’s okay.”

Zayn stands off to the side, awkwardly shifting weight from foot to foot, and Harry jerks his chin towards the armchair next to the sofa for Zayn to sit. “I’m guessing you drove,” he says to Zayn, and pats Niall’s ruddy cheek. “I’m gonna get you some water, alright?”

“I am so sorry,” Zayn says, trailing after him into the kitchen instead. “I don’t know, he just - he looked sort of upset, I just thought it’d be like, commiseration or something -”

“Seriously, you’re fine,” Harry says with a laugh. He opens the fridge to pull out a pitcher of filtered water, turns to grab a glass from the rack next to the sink. “ _I’m_ usually the one who’s the maudlin drunk, so it’s a nice change of pace.” 

“He fuckin' _what?_ ” Niall says from the living room, and Harry looks up for a moment, holds up a finger Zayn’s way and disappears with the glass of water. He returns a few minutes later, frowning, and when Zayn gives him a questioning look, he stage-whispers:

"Um... so Bressie’s on tour now, and Niall still talks to the crew members, obviously - anyway, one of ‘em sent Niall a text earlier, guess he didn’t see it ‘til now, but apparently he, um. Showcased a song off his upcoming album, and dedicated it to - well, it was vague, but, like. Pretty obviously a bad break up song.” 

Zayn winces. “Like, on a scale of Carly Simon to Taylor Swift?”

Harry smiles ruefully. “Alanis Morissette.”

“Ouch.”

“Yep.”

“Why won’he answer s'stupid _phone_ ,” Niall groans. There’s a sound of something hitting the hardwood, and then a pause. “Dropped m’phone.” Another pause. “Still works, _yesss_.”

“Do _not_ call him or leave any messages, Niall James Horan - Sober You will live to regret it!" Harry shouts from the kitchen, and Niall singsongs back, _Fuck yooo-ooouuu_!

“Did I mention how sorry I was?” Zayn offers up. “Because, like. Seriously. _Really sorry_.”

“Please,” Harry scoffs, and then hauls himself up onto the counter with a smile. “I’m sure he was just happy to see you.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.” Harry kicks his legs out, drums a beat onto his thighs as Niall says, “He picked up! You picked up! _Hi_.”

Harry lets his head fall back with a sigh. “Ahh, shit.”

“Should you... take his phone away.”

Harry opens his mouth just as Niall says, “I _know_ it’s seven in the morning there, but we hafta talk about this!”

“It’s like listening to a late night soap opera,” Harry says then. 

“You shouldn’t - m’not _good_ with stuff like that, I _told_ you,” Niall says, and inhales sharp before his voice lowers. “No, I told you. ...I’m _sorry_ , I jus' - I don’t wanna not talk to you -”

He gets cut off by whatever Bressie says next, and Harry is actually twiddling his thumbs from his seat at the counter, so Zayn clears his throat and jerks a thumb in the direction of the front door. “I should - I should get going.”

“But _talk to me_ instead of dedi - dedicating shitty fuckin’ songs to me, are you fucking kidding me? ... _All our friends know it’s about me_. ...No... no, I deserve it,” Niall says, and his voice cracks, just a bit. “That’s what fuckin’ hurts, Brez. I deserve all of that. And you deserve better.”

At that, Harry hops off the counter with a wince. “I should steal his phone before he really does say something he’ll regret. Are you fine getting home, then?” 

“Yeah, my, um." Zayn shifts his weight. "My bike’s in Niall’s car, I’ll be good.”

They both pass the entryway, Zayn headed towards the door and Harry making a beeline to where Niall is now curled up on the sofa, phone jammed between the cushion and his ear so he doesn’t have to hold it up. 

Zayn’s got the front door open when Harry, having taken an apparent detour on his way to the living room, comes up behind him instead, places a hand on his shoulder to turn him around. “Oh! Hey, I forgot - so my friend Nick is renting a house for the summer with a couple of his friends - anyway, he’s throwing a party Saturday, you should come. Gimme your phone.”

Zayn unlocks it and hands it over, watches Harry type out a number quick and save it under _Styles_. From the living room, Niall says brokenly, “I love you too, but it was never like that, you know it wasn’t,” and Harry smiles, brows jumping, and takes a few backwards steps towards the living room. 

“Word of advice, Zayn? Never date anyone in music.” He shrugs, and turns on his heel. “Not unless you want half an album dedicated to your inability to commit.”

Zayn laughs, even though nothing feels funny. 

“I’ll remember that,” he says.

* * *

The address Harry texts him on Saturday is in, possibly, the wealthiest neighborhood Zayn’s ever set foot in, barring Louis and Niall’s. He steps over the threshold with a certain amount of trepidation - he has no idea where Harry and Niall are, Harry stopped replying to him an hour ago, and he figures it’ll take forever to find them in a place like this. 

It’s a different kind of raucous than he’s used to, a house party magnified tenfold by an unlimited budget. He forgoes the kitchen for a drink, tries to track down Niall and Harry on the first floor before he gives up and tries for the second.

Zayn dodges something someone throws across the hall when he hits the landing, a strip of condoms soaring overhead like a streamer, and chokes out a laugh. The first door he opens gives him full few of someone snorting lines off a bathroom counter; the second, a couple _clearly_ about to slide into home. 

He can’t close that one fast enough.

“Zaaayn!”

His head whips in the direction of the voice - Harry’s at the far end of the hall, waving his arms wildly like Zayn can’t see him. “Niall is gonna be _so excited_!”

He all but shoves Zayn into the room once Zayn's close enough, shuts the door behind them, and the atmosphere in here finally lets him just _breathe_. It’s only the three of them, in this room; Niall is sitting up against the headboard of the guest bed, taking a hit with a bowl in one hand and lighter in the other, and smiles so wide when he sees Zayn his eyes nearly disappear under a mass of laugh lines. 

"Hey, wow,” he coughs out, smoke swirling out of his mouth. “You came.”

“There are,” Zayn glances behind him, at the closed door, and then at Harry, who’s crawling onto the bed to flop down next to Niall. “So many naked people downstairs.”

“Yeah, Nick’s parties kind of get,” Harry makes an explosion gestures with his hands, and then uses both to push his hair out of his eyes. “Should’ve warned you.”

“I can hang,” Zayn says, and hopes he sounds more confident than he feels, currently. He lifts a hand in hello to the Niall. “Um. How come you’re, like. Secluded.”

“Claustrophobia,” Niall answers, handing the bowl to Harry. “Too many people around or not enough room for me to move and I start, y'know," he demonstrates for the sake of it, mouth gaping and gasping and arms flapping at his sides. "It's not cute."

Zayn laughs, can’t help it, sits down at the edge of the bed and takes the bowl and lighter when Harry hands them over. “Here, cash it. Thumb the carb when you -” he instructs, and Zayn shoots him the most unamused look he can muster, one that has Harry holding up his hands with a laugh. 

“Nevermind, clearly you know what you’re doing.”

“This is so weird,” Niall says. He’s staring at Zayn with hooded eyes, absentmindedly picking at the stitching of the bedspread underneath them. “You were a kid, and now you’re aren’t.”

"That _is_ how birthdays work," Zayn mumbles. He puts his lips to the mouthpiece, strikes the lighter and tilts it until the flames lick the edge of the bowl; he drops the lighter onto the bed, inhales and watches embers burn the last of the green, releases his thumb after a beat, and holds the hit in, just for a few seconds, and Niall is - 

Niall is _still staring_ ; 

And sweat prickles at Zayn’s back as something undefinable but undeniably compelling settles in his chest. He tips his chin up, blows out a series of smoke of rings and blindly hands off the bowl to Niall. Harry pokes through the last one with glee, scrambles off the bed like a clumsy giant made entirely of limbs - falls, once he hits the edge of the bed, and jumps up with a start. 

“I must go,” he declares, with a bowed head and a sort of feigned regal benevolence Zayn and Niall simultaneously snort at. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, kids.”

“The list of things you won’t do is comically short, Meat Loaf,” Niall says, and Harry blows him a kiss and lifts a middle finger in response, just before he closes the door behind him. 

Zayn’s still sitting at the far end of the bed, hands clasped between his knees, and his mouth quirks up at the ends when Niall smiles at him. He inspects the bowl, scratches at the resin with a nail before he pulls a baggie out of his front jean pocket and starts to break up pieces of nuggets to refill it. “Hey, I’m sorry about getting smashed the other day,” he says, eyes flicking up to meet Zayn’s, briefly. “It was stupid.”

“Nah, I get it. Break-ups can be hard.”

“Mm.” He starts to pack the bowl, asks nonchalantly, “Like you and Liam?”

“Uh,” Zayn looks down at his lap and laughs. “I don’t know. Her friend sort of wasn’t lying when she said we broke up a lot, and it was never like, _easy_ , but. But I think we both knew we’d always just go back to each other. That’s why this time feels different.”

Niall rolls up his baggie. “Because it’s more concrete?”

“Yeah.” Zayn shakes his head, watches Niall take the first hit off the new bowl. “It’s just like - you know how you grow up with certain... certain expectations or whatever? Like there are things you just know you have to do, or be, or you’ll disappoint someone?”

Niall passes the pipe over, chest tight from holding in his hit as he nods. 

“We both - it felt like we were together because that’s how it was supposed to be. Liam and Zayn, known each other since diapers. Childhood sweethearts,” he says around the mouthpiece, takes a quick hit, and then another. He can feel it starting to creep up on him, that buzz, that itch that comes in waves, and he knows he’ll be spaced out in another handful of minutes, give or take. 

“I think she just got tired of it,” he says, once he exhales. “And so did I. Still love her to death, but it’ll - I think it’ll be good for us to find different people, for once.”

“I think it’ll be good, too,” Niall says. And: “I kinda wish I’d stopped things with Brez before it got too far; I think part of me knew it would happen, but I couldn’t bring myself to care, because it was just,” he pauses to take a hit, talks through the smoke billowing out of his mouth, “shit ton of fun, y’know?” 

He shakes his head, shoulders drooping a little. “Mostly just want my friend back, don’t care about the other stuff, at this point.”

“So you’re not - you’re not secretly still into him or anything,” Zayn asks, tucking a finger into a rip in his jeans and pulling, and Niall laughs. 

“No. Definitely not.” He flicks the lighter on, again and again, and tilts his head to the empty space next to him. "One more bowl for now?"

Zayn hesitates, for just a moment, and then climbs up onto the bed, awkwardly shuffles forward on his knees until he drops down next to Niall, backs to the headboard, shoulder to shoulder. 

"You pack it," he says, blinding digging through his pocket for the baggie again and handing it and the piece off to Zayn. His head is tipped back, the line of his neck exposed, eyes closed and breathing even.

For a few quiet, stolen moments, Zayn lets himself look: takes in the slope of Niall's nose, the way he's filled out even more since Zayn last saw him, with broader shoulders and thicker arms, and stubble lining his jaw like he hasn't shaved in a day or two.

Niall cracks open an eye to glance at him in his periphery, smile tugging at his mouth, and Zayn goes back to the piece, starts to pack the bowl with the broken up buds Niall's already prepared.

"You look different," he tells Zayn, eyes shut again, and Zayn's hand shakes when he rolls the baggie back up. 

"Different how?"

"Good," Niall answers, licking his lips and slouching down to he can tip his chin up, let his head rest on the propped up pillow behind him. "Not that you looked bad before, y'know, just. Grown, now."

Zayn swallows, shuffles down as well until he's propped up on an elbow, body curled in so he can set his lips on the piece and hold it Niall's way for a light. He flops down after his hit, Niall's hip pressed against his, lets his eyes fall shut and listens to the lighter flick on and off a few times, listens to the sound of Niall inhaling, exhaling -

"Hey."

Zayn turns his head. Niall's on his side now, pipe held between them, nearly cashed. "Shotgun?" he asks, and the bass thumps loud downstairs, on par with the beat of Zayn's heart. He shouldn't, he really - he really, _really_ shouldn't -

But he says _Yeah_ , anyway, and Niall studies him, silent, and then shuffles around, pushes onto an elbow and lights up. His chest expands and he gives a sharp inhale to hold the smoke in and stretches his arm out to drop the piece and lighter onto the bedside table.

When he turns back around, he scoots in close and there's only a few, short inches between them now as they lie on the bed. Zayn shuts his eyes, feels Niall's fingers crook under his chin; their mouths aren't pressed together when he starts to exhale, but it's close enough: a ghost of a touch Zayn can pretend is real as he breathes in.

Niall's thumb sweeps across the concave space under Zayn's bottom lip and Zayn's eyes flutter open again: Niall's watching his mouth, gaze hooded. He glances up, catches Zayn's eye with the wispy, inhaled smoke swirling into the air between them.

Zayn grinds his back molars, feels the sensation of a million different goosebumps simultaneously ghost over him, and lets his mouth part when Niall presses down gently with his thumb. 

A body thumps against the door; someone shouts, drunkenly, and Niall grins, turns his head to cough out a laugh and sit up. Zayn breathes out so quick he goes dizzy with it, and rolls onto his back. 

"Shit," he mutters, arm flung over his eyes, and Niall is still laughing quietly, thumping himself in the chest to get the coughs all out.

Zayn hauls himself up onto his elbows then, bites his lip. He needs - he needs air, space, something to clear his head. "I, um - I could go for a smoke."

Niall casts an obvious look around the room; Zayn shakes his head. "Cigarette, I mean."

"Oh." He stands, gives Zayn a once over and holds out a hand to pull him up. "C'mon, I've got the perfect spot."

* * *

It’s chilly for the first weekend in July, enough that Zayn turns up the collar of his jacket when they step out into the night. The balcony Niall's led them to is mostly empty, barring one lone smoker near the door. Niall tugs on the sleeve of his jacket, walks them a few yards past, until they're at the metal railing overlooking the Pacific.

"It's fucking packed in there," Niall sighs, hip pressed against the railing as Zayn lets his back hit the brick of the house. "Also can't believe you still wanna smoke after that."

He digs through his jacket for his pack, barely tucks a cigarette between his lips before Niall's stepping in close, lighter in hand. The end of Zayn's cigarette burns bright.

He exhales, licks his lips and settles a little heavier against the brick. "Bad habits die hard. Feel great, though." He points the cigarette at Niall, mouth quirked at the ends. "Good shit, Niall."

"Yeah?" he asks, and he's got a curve to his mouth, too. He laughs, a beat off his regular mark, hair ruffling in the wind; he shivers, just barely, and Zayn takes in the thin cotton T-shirt he's wearing and shrugs off his leather jacket with his cigarette between his lips, mumbling _'ere_.

Niall takes the jacket and slides it on without protest. "Didn't realize it was gonna be so cold out tonight," he says, and buries his nose in the collar. "God, this smells good. Is that your cologne?"

Zayn snorts, cheeks hollowing on an inhale, in some weird, last ditch attempt at coming off aloof, because he can pretend, can't he? Like maybe if he acts like he's got his shit together, it'll actually seem like he does.

The lone smoker stubs their cigarette butt out and heads back inside. Niall casts a look to his right as the French doors open and the sounds of the party bleed out onto the balcony for a moment. Then Niall is coming in close, shoes shuffling lazily across the tile. Zayn pushes off the brick in the same moment to flick ash off the balcony, lets Niall bump into his shoulder and tuck his face into the crook of Zayn's neck. Zayn stills, free hand curled at his side so he won't do something stupid like reach out and touch.

Niall's hands are spread at his hips, not pressing in, exactly, just his fingers splayed and hovering, skating over the fabric of Zayn's shirt. He shakes his head, mutters, "Why do you smell so _good_."

Zayn makes a noise in his throat, tips his head to the side, just a bit. "How high are you right now, exactly?"

When Niall laughs, it's with his lips mouthing at the thin skin under Zayn's ear; he curls a single finger into one of Zayn's pockets, lifts himself up on his toes and sighs, "Fuckin' stratosphere."

"No more kush for Niall," Zayn teases, breath catching, and Niall's hand twitches, like he's briefly contemplating pinching Zayn's side but it involves more effort than he's willing to exert at the moment.

He sighs then, picks his head up and watches Zayn take another drag with slow-blinking eyes. "I still can't believe you're single," he says out of nowhere, pulling a face, and Zayn laughs in surprise.

"Why not?"

"You've looked in a mirror lately, right," Niall asks him. "You know you're hot, _right_?" 

Zayn shoves at him, scoffing; Niall doesn't take the bait. "No, I'm serious."

"You're so done," Zayn half-laughs, weakly, switching the cigarette from right to left so he can brace himself on the railing.

Niall wrinkles his nose and then grins. "Well, yeah, fuck you, I am, but honestly. _Honestly_ , Malik." 

His cheeks are ruddy, eyes bright and a little glassy from the bowls they'd hit earlier. Niall doesn't ever do anything by halves, and this moment isn't any different: he leans in so Zayn gets a whiff of his own cologne already clinging stubbornly to Niall's neck, hand dropping to the railing and onto Zayn's wrist, maybe on accident (maybe not).

"You're just." He shakes his head minutely, eerily serious, focused on the place where the pads of his fingers lie gentle on Zayn's wrist. "Beautiful."

Zayn was laughing, at some point, he's sure of it, but he's holding his breath now. Tries not to look at Niall's mouth and fails. Somehow, _somehow_ , he finds himself letting out a shuddering exhale, says soft and vaguely cocky, "Not the first person to call me that."

"Won't be the last," Niall admits. His eyes flick up to Zayn and then down to - and _fuck_ Zayn's heart's thumping so hard it hurts, almost. 

Calloused fingers skate over his wrist bone and down across his knuckles, and he licks his lips, watches Niall's eyes track the movement before he studies Zayn properly. He sighs on a barely-there laugh, "Really fucking gorgeous," and Zayn is about two seconds away from melting into a puddle, probably.

"Niall!"

The French doors slam violently open and Zayn recoils, stumbles back so quick that his head knocks against the brick - and it's Harry calling out and loping over to them on long legs, and Harry clumsily draping himself over Niall, and Harry slurring, "Oops, sorry, didn't mean t'ruin the mood."

"Shut up," Niall says, without any real heat, and Zayn rubs the sore spot at the crown of his head and forces himself to kept his head down, wonders vaguely if there's a sinkhole under Nick's rental that can swallow him up in the next ten seconds.

What the fuck is he thinking - what the fuck is he _doing_? Like, what - he'll kiss Niall Horan on a balcony at a _party_ when literally anyone could walk in on them at any second - as proven by the drunken koala currently latched onto Niall? 

Like Zayn'll _let_ himself be kissed?

"I'm really - I'm really high," Zayn says with perfect clarity, pushing past the two of them and tripping when his foot gets caught on a metal chair leg. "I - shit - I have to go."

They turn as a unit. Harry's staring at him, eyes hooded and cheek mashed up against Niall's shoulder; Niall tries to extract himself, takes a heavy half step forward with Harry still slung against him. "I'll drive you."

Zayn takes a matching step back, even though they've already got half the balcony between them. "I'm fine, I got my bike," he says with a harsh laugh out, and he feels, of all the stupid, useless emotions attempting to bury themselves deep in him currently, something equitable to _embarrassment_.

He can't kiss Niall. 

He can't want to kiss Niall.

Not back then, and especially not now.

"I have to go," he repeats mindlessly, and jerks forward towards the sliding door.

"Night," says Harry sleepily.

"I'll... see you around," Niall says next, a not-quite question, and this awful, fucked up sound gets stuck in Zayn's throat again, like his brain's not sure if he wants to laugh or cry.

 _Please leave me alone_ , he thinks - he _means_ to say - but what comes out instead is, "Okay."

He makes it halfway home before he realizes Niall was still wearing his jacket.

By then, the knot on his head almost feels like a reprimand.

* * *

The living room light is still on when Zayn gets home. He props his bike up against the wall once he's inside, pokes his head past the doorway to peek in: Doniya's sitting on the sofa, hair piled up in a bun, papers spread out on the coffee table and beat up laptop balanced on her knees.

The TV is on low volume, and she doesn't pick her head up from her computer screen when she says, "You're lucky. Girls are sleeping, told Mom you were at Liam's. Baba's still at work for a few more hours."

Zayn checks his phone. Three am. "He working night shift all week?"

"Yep." She glances up then, shoves at a few folders on the cushion next to her so Zayn can sit down. "So where were you, really?"

"Out."

Doniya rolls her eyes. "Duh, don't be a smartass."

"You asked." He rests his cheek at the top of the sofa, turns his face in. "I was with some friends."

"Doing what?" She's already looking back at her screen again, and sniffs. "Smoking up and tagging buildings?"

"I don't _tag_ ," Zayn bites out, and Doniya shakes her head.

"You know, if you put in the _minimum_ amount of effort into anything that you put into stencils and spray cans you could've actually gotten into a decent school last year -"

"How's the job hunt going?" Zayn says, loud and deliberate. And just a little cruel. "That degree of yours treating you well?"

She smiles, like she's feels sorry for him and his need to redirect, and lifts her head. "I moved back here because I thought it'd be easier to live at home but, like - I can't intern and not make money," she says. "And nowhere will hire me without years of experience _I don't have_ , even with all the shit I managed to do."

Doniya slumps back into the sofa. "You know, I applied at the McDonald's near your job? Just to bring _some_ money in." She presses her fingers to her eyelids. "Told me I was overqualified, had to beg them to give me a shot."

"You'll find something better soon, Dee," Zayn tells her wearily. The high's all but worn off now, more of a low level buzz than anything else, and he's too tired to start a fight right before the sun rises when all he wants to do is curl up in bed and try to forget the way Niall looks at him now. 

"Huh."

Doniya's smiling small at her laptop screen, and Zayn cranes his neck just enough to catch the blue top bar and header of a Facebook page. "What?"

"Old friends from school got engaged. Sorta young, but I guess when it's not something that seemed possible before..."

Zayn squints. "What?"

"They're both doing graduate work at UIC, known each other since high school." She flips the laptop around; at the center of the page is a photo of two smiling girls, teary-eyed, one with a hand over her mouth and a ring on her finger. "Marriage equality act finally went into effect there."

And very suddenly, Zayn can't breathe. He holds himself still, tries to figure out whether she can see the tense set to his shoulders, see if he swallows too hard. He says, "Oh. …Is that - is that okay with you?"

Doniya cocks her head. "Y'know, they push, but I don't really think I want to get married - or at least, I don't know, maybe when I'm in my -"

"No, I mean," he wills his voice not the shake, "I mean, like - like that. The - um. Your friends."

It takes a moment for it to click - Doniya stares, nonplussed, and then makes a soft _ah_ sound and clacks away at her keyboard. "What do I care who someone falls in love with or fucks or kisses or whatever?" 

She shrugs, like that's that, and Zayn could just -

He could just open his mouth, right now. Maybe say something like _ha ha ha speaking of girls kissing - not really into that!_ or maybe - or maybe _Niall's back in town and hey, did you know he was the first guy I ever noticed who wasn't on TV or in a comic book_ ;

 _And he's tangible in a very real way now that he never really was before, and I can't deal with it, don't know how to deal with it, don't know if I even want to_ learn _, but if I could just tell you this one thing maybe none of this will matter so much._

And the words are there, clawing at his esophagus in their rush to climb out of his mouth, pushing forward with this thought in his head on repeat, _doitdoitdoitjustfuckingdoitsaythatyoure -_

"Think I'm gonna go to be - bed," Doniya says through a yawn, closing her laptop and pushing into a stand. "I was just waiting up for you, anyway." 

Zayn smiles faintly down at his lap.

Never mind, then.

Doniya gathers up her piles haphazardly, stacks them on the laptop and stretches. "I'm using the Jeep all day tomorrow so you'll have to take the bus to work."

He nods. She walks around the long way, first to the turn the TV off by hand, and then passed Zayn's end of the sofa. She’s rounding the arm when he clears his throat and says without looking up: 

"It's cool. That your friends are happy."

Doniya pauses for a beat, and reaches out to comb a hand through Zayn's hair and shake his head a little. "Think that's all anyone ever wants," she says with a pat to his shoulder, and then laughs. "Well that and like, money, right? Night."

"Yeah, night," Zayn says faintly.

She shuts off the living room light and heads to their room - Safaa and Waliyha have her old one to themselves now, so she's bunking with Zayn for the time being while she's back at home, with their two bed frames shoved at opposite corners and a growing pile of clothes and shit between them with no place to put it.

Zayn is left in the silence and the dark, and he's not brave, not at all, just keeps on swallowing his words and shoving them down until, one day, he's afraid he won't ever get them back again.

* * *

Zayn breaks open a new roll of quarters for the register a few days later when the bell above the door to the craft store chimes. He starts off with a “ _Welcome to -_ ” before he glances up and cuts himself off when he sees Niall walking in. “Um. What’re you doing here?”

“Mm, don’t think that greeting was in your employee handbook.”

“I mean um,” Zayn stalls, goes back to ripping the package off the roll of quarters. “Hi?”

"Hey." Niall stuffs his hands in his front pockets as he takes a look around the store. "This your job, then?" He bats at a bundle of _Avengers_ -themed balloons tied to the front of the register and grins. 

"They sell art supplies here," Zayn says, by way of explanation, and Niall tips his head back and _ahhs_.

"Employee discount, right."

"Seriously, what are you doing here," Zayn blurts again, and studies the register when Niall shoots him an amused look.

"Returning your jacket, it's in the car. Plus I'm...shopping," he says, which is total bullshit. "I'm making a scrapbook."

Zayn laughs, and slams the register drawer shut a little too hard, drops the coin packaging into the small, plastic trash bin at his feet under the counter. There's a movement in front of him, and when he glances up, Niall's leaning over and into his space, arms folded underneath him. 

"When's your break?"

"What break?" Zayn grabs his phone out from under the counter to check the time, doesn't protest when Niall takes it from him after. "Got three more hours on my shift ‘til close. I get out at six."

"Sucks," Niall comments absentmindedly, tapping at Zayn's screen, tipping it up towards his chest when Zayn tries to see what he's doing. "No peeking."

"Please don't change the language, Louis and Liam decided to set it to Spanish once and it took me like two hours on Google Translate to fix it."

Niall cackles, dances away when Zayn lunges for the phone. " _Tú tiene_ muy _buenos amigos_ ," he tells Zayn, and pockets the phone. His own chirps with a message a moment later but he ignores it to ask, "Anyway, where's your scrapbooking section?"

"You're not serious."

"I never joke about crafts, Zayn," Niall says somberly. 

His mouth twitches. Zayn laughs, a little desperate. _God_. 

"Aisle four," he answers, and Niall tips an invisible hat his way and treks over, keeps the conversation going as he inspects the shelves:

"So, did you get home alright, Saturday?"

"Um," Zayn crosses his arms, drops them, punches one of the balloons. "Yeah. Did you?”

“Took a cab,” Niall says, nodding. “I meant to text you to see if you were okay and then realized I didn’t have your number, and Harry was too trashed to unlock his phone properly.”

“Oh. I was fine. Sorry about, like." He waves a hand when Niall glances over, hopes it manages to convey _Sorry I had a Big Freakout and bailed_ without him actually having to say that.

"No worries," Niall shrugs, eyebrows knit together as he compares stationary. "Guess you were just busy, huh."

Zayn can sense an out when it's given, and he takes it. "Yeah. Busy."

"You think you'll be busy, say, tomorrow night?"

"I work."

"Oh." Niall frowns at a stack of stencils. "Thursday?"

Nonplussed, Zayn asks, " _Why_?" 

Niall snatches something off one of the hooks and makes his way back over; he hauls himself onto the check out counter, smacks down whatever he grabbed. (It's a stack of generic Lisa Frank style Post-It notes with pink-and-purple dolphins and stars along the sides; Zayn buries an internal scream.) 

"We should hang out," Niall says, pulling out his wallet. "At mine."

Zayn scans the barcode. "Two twenty-four."

Niall hands him a twenty and presses: "Is that a no?"

Zayn counts out the correct change from the register. He hands it off and smiles, purposefully bland. "Seventeen seventy-six is your change, come again soon."

Niall takes his money and slides off the counter, pointing a finger in Zayn's direction. "Is that a yes?"

"Why are you trying so hard?" Zayn asks, and it comes out quiet, imploring. Niall just lifts a shoulder, pulls out Zayn's phone from his pocket and slides it over.

"I wanna catch up," he answers. "That's allall."

He waits, and Zayns should say no, shouldn't even tempt himself - only, Niall's smiling, just a bit, and he'd seem nonchalant, but Zayn can see the way he's clutching his Lisa Frank Post-It package, picking at the plastic packaging nervously with a thumbnail.

(Niall's _nervous_ because of Zayn and somewhere, Zayn thinks, fifteen-year-old him is fist pumping.)

"I'm off Saturday, can come over Friday," Zayn agrees, finally, and Niall raps his knuckles on the counter and grins.

"Perfect! Stop by around like ten, is that cool?" Zayn nods. "You still remember where I live? Can’t remember if I had to give you directions from the beach last time."

"Sure I do - do _you_ still remember where you live? I'm pretty sure I've been there more often than you have in the last five years."

"Fuck you," Niall chirps cheerfully, pulling out his phone, and the door chimes again when he pushes it open. "Later, Malik."

"Later - wait!"

Niall leans back to look at him, half-in, half-out, squinting against the daylight. "What?"

"My jacket?"

"Mmm," Niall cocks his head and grins before studying his phone screen. "I'm officially holding it hostage," he calls over his shoulder. "See you Friday!"

* * *

Later, when Zayn's in bed, he finally scrolls through his contact list.

There's no _Niall_ , but he does find an entry for _Your Best Friend's Hot Older Brother ;)_.

A smile flickers across Zayn's mouth; he sticks his phone on its charger and crawls under his covers to sleep.

* * *

The gate access code is sitting at the top of Zayn's inbox by the time he gets to Niall's on Friday, along with a message - _Let yourself in whenever you're here_ and a full string of emojis (several party poppers, smiley face, smiley face, _blushing_ smiley face, sunglasses dude, two tiny beers clinking together in celebration), and Zayn tries to tamp down the improbably involuntary grin that builds at the corners of his mouth.

He has the Jeep tonight, miracle of all miracles; everyone's at home, for once, and he can have it all day tomorrow to, provided he get back in time to take Doniya to an early morning interview. He parks it in the driveway, spares an idle glance at the sleek Lincoln Nav Niall's taken to riding around in, as well the massive garage that Zayn knows - purely from an adolescence spent in awe of the sudden wealth Louis' family stumbled into because of love - houses a handful of automobiles he can't even _dream_ about sitting in.

The front door is unlocked, when he gets to it, even though he's early. Someone - Niall, more than likely - is strumming a guitar upstairs, singing in a low, indecipherable voice. Zayn cranes his neck to peek up the stairwell to the second floor, calls out, "Um...I'm here?"

The guitar gives a discordant screech, a slip of fingers over the strings; Niall curses, and there's a laugh that isn't his, and then _Harry_ is rushing out into the hallway and down the stairs, knotting a scarf around his hair like a headband as he goes. 

"Zayn," he says in greeting when his feet hit the bottom landing, smiling serenely, and gives a knowing little jump of his brows. "Was just leaving. Won't be back 'til late." A pause. " _Really_ late. Head on up!"

He's gone in the next moment, door slamming shut behind him.

Zayn settles a hand on the railing and climbs.

* * *

The room is a mess.

There's papers strewn all over. Notebooks, too, littering the floor, some open and some not - Zayn carefully steps over a few, notices with this funny, little tightness in his chest that Niall's got the Lisa Frank Post-Its he'd bought a few days earlier attached to some of them. The writing is tight and cramped and it feels intrusive to crouch down for a closer look, but he can read some words, anyway, even standing straight - _home_ , one says, with a tiny stick figure surfer drawn underneath it. _Feels like the closest thing I've got is you_ says another, and he's not sure if they're lyrics or just a base for a bigger picture, but he smiles anyway. 

"Hey."

He looks up. Niall's in the doorway that leads out onto his balcony, biting his lip, a tinge of red crawling up his neck and splashed across his cheeks. "I promise I'm never this messy, Harry was helping me out with some album stuff, before you got here and it, uh." He looks into the room, winces at the notebooks and loose papers. "Kinda got away from us."

"It's okay," Zayn says with a laugh. "It's, like. Looking at your creative process or whatever."

"Creative process, right," Niall scrubs at his hair, drags a hand down his face before he drops his arm. "If by creative process you mean losing my fucking shit over a solo album. You planning on staying the night?"

Zayn starts. "Uh - what -"

"No," Niall says quickly, stepping forward, "you're, um - sorry, I was joking, you have -"

He gestures to Zayn's backpack, and Zayn takes a breath and swings it off so it's held loosely in one hand. "Oh - right. I, um. Just habit, at this point. It's like, supplies and shit."

He offers up a lopsided smile and sets the backpack down on the bed. "Never know where inspiration'll strike."

Niall makes a strangled sound and asks, "In my bedroom?"

"I." Zayn opens his mouth, closes it. "Um."

"D'you want a drink?" Niall asks in a rush, and he's walking forward, grabbing onto Zayn's wrist and pulling him out into the hallway and back down the stairs. "I want - we should have a drink."

His hand slips into Zayn's as they hit the first floor landing, but he doesn't seem to notice.

If Zayn doesn't pull away, he figures he can't be blamed.

* * *

They wind up back upstairs, at some point, drinking beers on the balcony, stood close together as they lean against the railing. Niall tells him about the solo album, and Your Best Bet breaking up - “disbanding,” he corrects himself, after a beat. 

“It was fun while it lasted, y’know? But I think we realized we all wanted different things. Josh went back to school, Harry’s content to take a break.” He smiles, faltering. “I fucked around with Bressie, and now I just - I want to do something on my own. I want to _make_ something on my own.”

He pushes off the railing, scrubs a hand through his hair sheepishly. Zayn follows, and drops down onto the outdoor chaise. “You can do it,” he says, scooting up when Niall sits at the edge of the chair. “Or. I think you can.”

“Terrified of fucking everything up,” Niall admits. He downs the rest of his beer, and rises, disappears into his room for a moment. He comes back with Zayn’s backpack, and hands it over.

He asks, "What about you?"

Zayn lifts a shoulder, nonplussed. "What about me?"

"Why didn't you go to school?" Zayn sets the backpack down by his feet, and glances away, already feeling the need to be evasive, but Niall sits next to him again. "No, I mean. Shit. Um. There's so many reasons people don't go, I get that, but like. I don't think Harry remembers - why would he - but you did great in school, didn't you? It can't be that you didn't get in."

Zayn stays silent, just long enough that Niall lets out a breath and says, "You've got all your - supplies in there. You take them _everywhere_ , right? I mean," he laughs, nods down at Zayn's hands. "Your fingers are always stained with something."

"What's your point?" He swallows, unzips the main compartment of his backpack to reach in. He adds quietly, "Not everyone can just take a break. Try something new while they sort their shit out."

There's a pause.

"I know," Niall says softly. 

Zayn shakes his head, and takes out his favorite sketchbook. It's the one he looked up for weeks, asked around the best art supply stores in town for - the one he only uses for final sketches, for his best work. He hands it over without looking, smacks it against Niall's chest.

"I got accepted to CalArts," he says, studying down at his lap. He's never told anyone that before. Not Louis, or Liam. Especially not his family. "When I applied, last year. I, um. I got a partial scholarship." He sucks in his bottom lip, mouth quirking at the ends. "I told everyone I didn't get in."

The pages of his sketchbook rustle; Niall says, hushed, "Why?"

"Too much responsibility here. Doniya was at school in Chicago. Mom works at the high school, but she barely makes anything. My, my dad - I," he lets out a breath, a rush of dry laughter. "He works so hard every day, and, and without someone there, my little sisters are -"

He stops, sighs and flops onto his back. Niall got his sketchbook open and the flashlight on his phone on so he can see it properly, but he's looking at Zayn, brows furrowed. "We need the money," he says, chin tipped up so he can look at the stars. "They wouldn't have been able to pay for me to go there, anyway, and I - I couldn't leave."

"So you're just gonna put your whole life on hold?"

" _Yeah_ ," Zayn stresses, and hauls himself up on his elbows. He shakes his head more vehemently, this time. "You don't get it. It's what I had to do."

There's a beat, and Niall holds the sketchbook up, careful, as he leans back and joins Zayn on the chaise. He props the sketchbook on his stomach, delicately fingering a corner. "What about what you want to do?"

And that - well. That answer’s even easier, isn’t it?

"I don't get to do a lot of things I want to do."

Niall turns on his side and after a moment, Zayn follows suit. The chaise is wide enough that Niall can still fit the sketchbook between them. "You have to do something with this," he says.

A smile flits across Zayn's face at that, and it's still small, but it's real. "I do," he replies. "I just happen to use the walls of abandoned buildings and empty billboards instead whatever college would've given me."

"Yeah, but," Niall ghosts over the page, like he's scared to touch it, scared he'll ruin it. "All of this is - I mean, I'm, I'm not like, an art dealer, but. Zayn, these are amazing. You're amazing."

He glances up when Zayn laughs, wrinkle still stubbornly present between his brows, the faint remnants of a smile tugging at his mouth. He closes the sketchbook. "Why do you always laugh when I say stuff like that?"

"It's my self-deprecating response to sincerity," Zayn says, and shrugs as much as he can lying down. He pillows his head on his folded up elbow. "I don't know. It just - I guess it always just seemed like you thought I was your little brother's dorky best friend."

It's Niall's turn to laugh now, scratchy from the beers they've downed. "Zayn, I never thought you were dorky, what?"

"I - really?" An end of Zayn's mouth picks up, unwitting. Niall nods. He's leaning on his forearm now, head lolled to the side.

"You were cool. Artsy. Had a crazy amount of talent, even back then. I used to point out your street art to my friends -"

"Yeah, when you all drunkenly drove into the hood for greasy four am burritos, right," Zayn says dryly, only half a joke. Niall pinches his side with his free hand, little wrinkle between his brows again. 

He doesn't move his hand away, after. Zayn holds in a breath for a long moment, Niall's palm burning a mark onto his side, pinky settled on the sliver of bare skin where Zayn's shirt doesn't quite meet the top of his jeans. 

"Did you," he exhales, voice wobbling unsurely, and swallows hard. Niall's still staring down at the sketchbook, lashes lowered. "Did you really know which ones were mine?"

"Always," Niall says immediately. He hasn't looked up yet. "You never gave yourself enough creditcredit. Still don't."

It's like. It's like Zayn's chest is too tight, like there's not enough air in his lungs, like there'll never be enough air in his lungs. Niall's pinky curls across his hipbone, and it makes Zayn's heart stutterstop, and this _twist_ pools low and sudden and intense in his groin.

"I told you," Niall adds with a murmur. "You were cool." A pause, and he glances up, finally, and grins. "For a fifteen year old, anyway."

Zayn's laugh leaves him like a punch to the gut; he aims a shove at Niall's shoulder like the one a few minutes before, only this time it has him shuffling closer instead, shifting against the cushion of the chaise. The movement makes Niall's hand drift up, under Zayn's shirt; he digs blunt nails in, and a soft, breathy sound Zayn can't fucking stop gets stuck in his throat that has them both fall silent.

He stretches out his legs, knocks a knee against Niall's. Finds enough courage in him to say, "I'm. I'm glad you came back. For the summer, or whatever."

Niall's eyes flick up to meet his. "Why," he teases. "Did you miss me?"

Zayn starts to smile, but it freezes halfway, another laugh dying in his damn throat like he _is_ fifteen again, stumbling and clumsy over his best friend's older sibling, too caught up in the fact that said sibling identified as male and had a fucking _dick_ to do anything but freak out over it, but now. 

Now.

"Yeah," he says, and means it. 

Niall's own smile slips slow from his face, and his eyes go soft, searching, trailing over Zayn's features and whatever he finds has him moving decisively, carefully, controlled: he takes Zayn's sketchbook and reaches over him, chest nudging at his shoulder, to drop it gently onto the floor of the deck. When he shifts back once more, his palm comes down to cup Zayn's cheek, and Zayn.

Well.

He knows what this is, now. And he can't remember a time when he wasn't waiting for it. 

Or that's what it feels like, anyway: like he's spent a good portion of his life standing at the edge of a cliff, toeing the line between being _told_ who he was and knowing that the assumption was wrong somehow, between straight and -

And whatever Option B is.

He swallows again, breathes in and out, calmer than the jackrabbit pulse in his chest, and waits. Niall's thumb skims along his cheekbone, and he leans in, slow, slower than Niall Horan's probably ever done anything, like he's trying not to startle Zayn, like he's giving him an extra few moments to back out -

Zayn closes his eyes when Niall's breath ghosts across his lips, doesn't move even when Niall kisses him, too soft to really count. And then again, and again, mouth barely parting and gentle enough that Zayn shivers. He makes another noise then - desperate, maybe. Wanting. Tips his chin and opens up, twitches a hand closer in an attempt to curl his fingers into the fabric of Niall's shirt.

Niall breaks the kiss, pulls away enough to bump his forehead against Zayn's, and then further, until there's a few inches of space between them again. He stares, lies curled up and arms crossed, shoulders hunched. He could be smiling. It could also be a trick of the light.

Zayn wants to touch his lips to see if they feel any different, but his limbs aren't cooperating at the moment. "I'm not drunk," he says, and it - it comes out like he means _I'm going to remember this_.

Niall laughs, more like an exhale than anything else. He sounds sad, of all things, when he says, "Yeah, I know you aren't."

Zayn wants to say something else, wants to keep talking because if he keeps talking then he won't have to _think_ , but instead he sighs and shuts his eyes.

He can deal with it in the morning.

* * *

Zayn jerks awake, wincing against the sunlight and breathing in sharp and sleepy through his nose. Disoriented, he fumbles for his phone in his back pocket, blearily goes to swipe at the screen to check the time before he realizes it's dead. Before he realizes he's not actually in his own bed.

Before he realizes Niall is asleep next to him.

He's curled up on his side still, hands under his armpits, head tucked up against his own shoulder, and the wave of this colossal fucking screw up crashes into Zayn. He grits his teeth, blinks back a sting in his eyes, and gets up as quickly and quietly as possible because he can't -

God, he can't - he can't do this, he _can't_ , he -

Mutters a " _Fuck_ ," and stumbles into a stand, snatches his backpack off the floor of the balcony with a trembling hand, hopes on everything that Niall stays asleep until Zayn can book it out of the driveway. 

He finds his jacket in the kitchen - and Harry eating a bowl of cereal. Harry beams when he sees Zayn, throws his arms out wide and pumps his fists towards the ceiling. "Zayn! Hey."

Zayn slides on his jacket and lifts a hand, can't bring himself to look Harry in the eye. "Hi. Um. I'm - I was just leaving."

"No worries, dude." He shovels a full spoon into his mouth and talks around a mouthful of Lucky Charms. "You stayed over?"

"Just - I, um." Zayn scrubs a hand through his hair and his voice isn't shaking, it isn't. He tries to laugh. It sounds more choked than anything else. "Yeah, I got - got fucking wasted last night, figured it was easier to crash here than -"

"Crash out on the street and leave your Jeep in a mangled heap, gotcha," Harry says, nodding sagely, and then laughs. "Ha! That rhymed!"

"Yeah well," Zayn shrugs jerkily. "Songwriter - I gotta go -"

"You okay?" Harry asks, and Zayn nods, gives another vague lift of his shoulders and attempts to pass the kitchen island without much fuss.

Harry grabs his wrist instead, thumb pressing gently into bone, and says, a touch more serious, "Hey, really, are you alright? You look - I don't know, your face -"

"Thanks," Zayn interrupts dryly, pulling his wrist out of Harry's grip. He clasps his free hand around it, absentmindedly rubs at it even though Harry wasn't holding onto it roughly, just to have something to do. "I'm fine."

Harry just stares, brows knit together. He asks, "Where's Niall?" 

Zayn does laugh then, takes a swinging step back. "He's sleeping out on the balcony. On the chaise - whatever the fuck you call that big ass chair."

"Okay," Harry says.

"I slept on the sofa in his room," Zayn responds, automatic.

Harry nods. "Okay," he repeats, softer. "I'll see you soon?"

"Yeah," Zayn strides forward and pulls the massive oak door open. " Soon, yeah. Bye."

"I'll tell Niall you -"

Zayn shuts the door on Harry, uses all the willpower he's got left not to make a run for his Jeep; he doesn't let himself breathe until he's in the driver's seat, turning the engine over. The car always takes a minute to get going, and he curls his fingers over the top of the steering wheel, rests his forehead on his knuckles and _exhales_.

Self-loathing settles in the pit of his stomach, and his mind gets stuck on an endless loop of flash images: Niall's hand at his hip, under his shirt, on his cheek, the touch scorching him down to his fucking bones. Niall's mouth - Niall's _mouth_ \- brushing against his, careful, so careful, like Zayn's this tender, breakable thing (maybe he is) and Zayn hates himself for remembering it -

He just can't decide if he hates himself more for not wanting to forget.


	3. and now we re-align the edges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Sorry, I," Niall starts on an aborted breath, shakes his head, "I, um, we don't - do you -"
> 
> "No -" Zayn sits up so fast their foreheads knock together, and Niall hisses in pain, mumbles a laughing ooow and rubs near his hairline. "Shit - I mean, yes. Ow. Sorry, what's, um, what's the question?"
> 
> Niall's laugh trails off. He asks, careful and maybe a touch uncertain, too: "Do you want this?" and Zayn takes a breath, and smiles, and tells Niall, more sure than he's ever been of anything, "Yeah. I do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bleep bloop. I have no idea what to put here. If you noticed, the # of parts got bumped up to five, not four - these are rough estimates, I don't exactly know _where_ I want to end each part yet, even if I know what happens haha. Aaanyway, that's it I guess. *backflips into space on a rocketship made entirely of Fictional Queer Zayn Feelings(TM)!!!*

* * *

The house is empty by the time Zayn gets in well past ten - the girls are at a family friends for the day, parents at work, and Doniya -

Shit.

He books it to his room, flops onto his bed and jams the charger into his phone. It takes a moment to flicker to life, and when it does, the missed notifications start to come in one by one. There’s a dozen texts from Doniya alone, ranging from mild concern to all caps anger. He sends off a text - _PHONE DIED, I’M SORRY, DID YOU MAKE IT IN TIME?_ \- but she doesn’t reply. 

Doniya walks in around four, while Zayn’s watching TV in the living room; she ignores his greeting, bypasses him completely to head straight into the kitchen. He hears the tap run, and when he sits up to peek, she’s got a glass of tap water in her hand. She’s sweaty, a little frazzled, like she’s been in a rush all day. Zayn vaults over the backend of the sofa, walks up to her as she pulls out a rickety chair from the dinner table to sit. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, and she just laughs behind the rim of her glass. “I mean it -”

“You wouldn’t have to _mean_ it if you’d just do the things people asked you to do.” She sets the glass down. “And I barely made it to my interview, thanks for asking. With a stain on my skirt from where Saf spilled juice on it in the morning and blisters on my feet from walking to and from bus stops but, hey, you probably had a lot of fun yesterday, so who cares about anyone else in this family, right?”

Zayn narrows his eyes. “Excuse me?”

“God, I asked you for one favor. One. And instead you figure, what? Now’s a good a time as any to go AWOL?”

“I - I fell asleep at my friend’s house, I told you,” Zayn says. “My phone died.”

Doniya rolls her eyes and scoots her chair out, its legs scraping rough along the tile and rises to dump the glass in the sink. “Give me a break, Z. You’re almost twenty. Think of a better excuse.”

“It’s not an excuse, it’s the truth! I had - just,” he falters, picks anxiously at a hangnail. “Stuff happened, and I forgot, okay? I forgot. It was shitty, and I’m sorry.”

Doniya slumps an elbow onto the counter behind her, sighing. “I don’t care anymore. I really don’t. You can’t get drunk whenever you want, wherever you want, and just expect me to cover for you -”

“I wasn’t even drunk - !”

“When you’ve got the family car and leave me stranded in the process.”

The frustration builds, and he shoves his own chair out and stands. “Jesus, do you want the car today? Is that it?” He digs in his pocket for the keys and tosses them onto the table. “Take it. Whatever. You made it to your stupid interview with or without me, and I can’t change what already happened, so I’m done talking about it.”

“That’s not even the point, Zayn.” She hauls herself up onto the counter. “Our parents are supposed to be able to count on you. I’m supposed to be able to count on you.”

Zayn lifts his shoulders, gives a shake of his head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you need to help out this family a little more -”

A laugh gets surprised out of him. “I work practically every day. I give mom almost all of my paychecks. I pay my own bills. What the fuck else do you want me to _do_? _I_ didn’t go off to some city two thousand miles away for school and leave us in the dust. I didn’t come back acting like I’m somehow fucking better than the place we _grew up_.”

“I _am_ better than this place!” Doniya says hotly. “I _deserve_ better than this place. Don’t you dare shit on me just because you didn’t get your ticket out of here like you thought you would," she spits. "Some of us actually got into college, Zayn. Some of us are trying to be more than just where we got stuck. How long are you gonna be bitter about it?"

There's a barely-quelled rage settling in the tense set of Zayn's shoulders, in the tremble of his jaw the moment before he grits his teeth. "Go fuck yourself," he tells her, and he can't remember the last time they've fought like this - it's been years, has to, and he forgets arguments like these always get way too ugly, way too fast, because a sibling always knows where to aim to do the most damage. 

"Right," Doniya tells him, biting and mean. "Because _you've_ fucked _yourself_ over enough times already, haven't you?"

He moves in a daze, after that: laughs, and shakes his head, hands balled into fists at his side. He heads to front door, snatches up his backpack and skateboard, jams the board in and zips the pocket up around it, ignores her when she asks him a question - it's mumbled anyway, deliberately low to raise his hackles. He doesn't look back, not when he slams the door behind him, not when he heads down the steps, not when he angrily grabs his bike from just inside the backyard gate and hops on.

He pedals fast down the block, the air whipping around him, billowing out his tank as he goes, and he squints past the sting in his eyes, barrels carelessly into an intersection -

Doesn't see the car coming right at him until it's nearly too late -

Zayn wrenches his handlebars to the right, hard, trips off the bike and onto the pavement as the fender catches him in the side. He rolls to a stop, and watches the car run over his bike and peel away, tires screeching.

"Asshole!" Zayn shouts. He pushes himself up, ignoring the flash of pain in his ankle, on his hip, grabs the nearest object he can find - a piece of his kickstand, broken off from the hit - and flings it as hard as he can at the car speeding off into the distance.

It's too far gone, now, and he swears again - a loud _Fuck!_ when he takes in the state of his bike: wonky pedal, completely ruined back tire. He's too proud to go back home with it to lick his wounds, doesn't want to spare the chance that Doniya might still be there, and he's contemplating just how far he can get on his feet. Somewhere quiet to engage in a little graffiti therapy, maybe, or even to just sit down and sketch a bit without having to worry about one fucking thing after the other.

Zayn picks up his bike, heart wild, and limps to the curb. He can't even ride his board like this - it's his right foot, his push off foot, and he sits carefully on the curb to reassess. He swings his backpack around to dig through its contents and make sure everything's intact. He's got a couple of wrapped spray cans at the bottom, stencils and markers in the smaller front pocket. His sketchbook -

Zayn freezes, and then drops his head.

His sketchbook is still at Niall's.

* * *

It takes him a couple hours to get there, with a long bus ride and a twenty minute walk. His ankle is more of a dull ache now than anything else, but it's still painful. He punches in the security code into the keypad and walks his bike all the way up the front pathway - Niall's car isn't in the driveway, but it could be in the garage. 

Zayn props up the bike against the house, and sends a prayer of thanks that the front door is unlocked when he gets there. He pushes it open, steps quickly in, and wonders just how stealthily he can get upstairs and grab his sketchbook before anyone realizes he's there.

He lets the door shut softly behind him. Music is playing off an iPod dock in the kitchen, and something is simmering in a pan on the front burner. Niall's at the opposite end of the island, between the granite slab countertop and the sink; all Zayn sees is the line of his back, his messy tousle of hair, the way he lets his head fall back with a small sigh as he waits for the food to cook, elbows planted on the counter. 

Zayn limps forward as lightly as possible. He thinks he can maybe get to the staircase and make it up before Niall even turns around - getting back _down_ is a different story entirely, but he figures _something_ has to work out right today.

Which is, naturally, when he sets his weight down on the wrong section of hardwood; it creaks loudly over the hum of the music, and he's already wincing as Niall starts, and glances over his shoulder. His eyes go wide and he hunches, almost as if in pain, before whispering something, rushed.

It takes a second to click. Zayn’s shoulders sink, and he watches Harry rise in front of Niall, slow and contrite. Harry doesn't look at him, just wipes at the edges of his mouth with a thumb and forefinger, and Niall had told Zayn _I don't do serious_ , hadn't he? So this is just - it's par for the course for him, then, isn't it?

"Zayn?”

That's Niall, saying his name unsurely. The music stops; Zayn wants to look up but can't, just keeps his eyes locked on a fixed point instead: a solitary scratch on the hardwood floor beneath him.

"I left my sketchbook," he says, and he can hear how empty he sounds. "I'll get it later, I, sorry -" 

He goes to head out, backpack held limply in hand. "I can come back later - Jesus _Christ_."

Niall curses then, kickstarted into action, stumbles into one of the stools along the island, and Zayn - he hears it from behind him, hears jeans being tugged up and the metal clink of a belt coming together, and Harry was wearing an _apron_ that said _Kiss the Cock_ -

Zayn laughs. This is a joke, of course it is: it's this, it's all of it, it's proof he can never have what he wants, at least not right now. He _laughs_ , even though he mostly feels like his chest has caved in, because if it's a joke then he's the fucking punchline, and if he doesn't get out of here in the next ten seconds he's going to do something childish and awful like cry.

He yanks the door back open even when Niall says, "Wait!" and, "Zayn - Z, wait - _fuck_ , let me explain - !"

Zayn does an about face, backpack swinging in his grip. Niall's halfway between the front room and the entryway now, cheeks ruddy and shirt rucked up in the front. Harry is still in the kitchen, near the iPod dock, head bowed and hair in his eyes, fingers pressed to his mouth.

Zayn wants to punch him. Them. Punch something, rip apart _anything_ , just to wipe that stupid fucking look off Niall's face. He takes a breath in, and it _hurts_ , why does it hurt this much? 

It shouldn't hurt this much.

"Let me explain," Niall repeats, taking a slow step towards Zayn, and Zayn laughs again.

"There's nothing - there's nothing to explain," he says, and he's drained, shoulders drooping. "There's not even anything, like, there's nothing between -"

He stops, and swallows, and Niall doesn't say anything, just stares at Zayn with his brows knit together and a frown gracing his mouth.

"It's not like there's, there's anything here. Happening." Zayn blinks back a sting in his eyes. "So, yeah, like. Whatever." He takes a backward step over the threshold. "You don't owe me a fucking thing, Niall."

"Zayn, _please_ -"

"Lose my number," Zayn says as he turns around to head out, and he slams the front door shut so hard the frame rattles in his wake.

* * *

Liam is sleeping when Zayn shows up at hers later, sweaty and aching when he reaches her ground floor bedroom window; he props his bike up against the peeling stucco wall and taps lightly on the pane until she appears behind the curtain, squinting against the daylight. 

She lets him in without question. The backpack goes first, tossed down gently, and then he heaves himself up onto the windowsill, wincing when it digs into the bruise on his hip. He falls into a hug when she steps in front of him.

"What happened?" she asks, touching the dirty, ripped hem where the gravel cut into his top from the hit.

"Car clipped me while I was riding, I'm fine," Zayn says, steering her towards the bed with his hands on her waist, and she goes, pliant, lets him shove her down gently.

They settle in, and she reminds, softly chiding, "We're not having sex.”

He nods. “I know.”

"I don't have to work today, wanted to sleep in. We can do that," she decides.

"Okay," he says, and turns them so he can wrap an arm around her waist and tuck his face into the space between the crook of her neck and the pillow.

Liam pauses, and then pets his hair. "Did something else happen?"

He shoves his face in harder, but she's pushing at him now, wriggling around until she can look him in the eye. She isn't smiling. "What's wrong?"

There are so many things Zayn wants to say. Wants to tell her. Like how being kissed by Niall felt a bit like a record scratch, like a lightbulb going off. Like how he wishes he hadn't run, afterward. Like how maybe it's best this way, maybe it's better Zayn realize how little of a chance he actually has before it goes too far.

"Zayn? Talk to me."

She frowns, bottom lip poking out a little. Zayn touches her cheek. "It's fine," he says again, and maybe his voice cracks, but maybe he's too tired to care anymore. "Love you."

(And he does, that's the worst part. He loves her, and there's this overwhelming need to make sure she's always happy, because she's his best friend, and he _loves her_ , even if being with her doesn't feel right.)

"Tell me," Liam pleads, and she looks so worried. "Tell me, or I'll call Louis later and make him drive down here and badger you in person."

A laugh bubbles out of Zayn's chest, surprised. He tucks an errant curl behind her ear, and touches their foreheads together. "Got a lot of shit running around in my head," he says. 

"Shit like what?"

He shuts his eyes, and thinks, _How things would be so much easier if I could just want you how I'm supposed to_.

"Dunno," he says, evasive, and kisses her cheek. "Don't worry about it. Go to sleep."

"But -"

"Li," he smooths a hand down her back, tucks it under her shirt, and she's got a bird's nest for hair and stale morning breath, but she's warm, and familiar, and she won't ever mess with his head. "Go back to sleep. Please."

Liam clicks her tongue, but settles deeper with a sigh. Zayn falls asleep within minutes.

* * *

There are five texts in his inbox when he wakes up from a long nap with Liam's head under his chin and afternoon light streaming through the window. Four are from Niall, and one is from Harry. 

He deletes them all, unread.

* * *

Zayn's stuck babysitting a couple of weeks later when Liam suggests they make a trek out to the Natural History Museum - they’ve got enough for admission, and he and Liam both happen to have off. They hit up a Target after, trying to find a cheap dinner they can all eat, since Zayn's mom has her second job, and Zayn's dad won't get in until late.

They pass the electronics section when he sees a familiar face: Harry, flicking through Blu-rays with a look of utmost concentration. Niall's nowhere in sight, but Zayn doesn't even take the chance, not when he's been giving them radio silence for so long.

Abruptly, he turns to head down the aisle that leads to the freezers, steering Liam with a hand at the small of her back and Safaa seated at his hip. Liam gives him a questioning look, glances behind her bemusedly, but then Zayn says, "Ice cream!" and smiles wide when Waliyha perks up and walks a little faster.

"Zaaayn," Safaa says on a soft, elated sigh, like he's the best (the only) big brother she's ever had.

"We should get ice cream, for home," he adds, hefting Safaa up a little higher. She's tired from walking around all day and she's heavy, but she's also five; he doesn't know how much longer he'll be able to do this with her, so dead arms at the end of the day are a decent trade off. "What kind, Saf?"

"Choc'late," she says, lifting her head off his shoulder. "Can we - um," she pushes her hair out of her face, "can we have pizza, too?"

"Ah." He falters; he's got _maybe_ twenty bucks left on him. Liam's touch at his elbow is fleeting, but it grabs his attention. 

"I can get it." She smiles lopsidedly. "As long as I can have a slice."

"Frozen pizza for everyone!" Zayn says, and, "Hey, don't go too far," when Waliyha skips ahead. She hops to a stop and puts her hands on her hips. 

"What's too far?"

"If I can't see you." She pulls a face; Zayn arches a brow. "Unless you want to hold Liam's hand?"

"No," she says darkly. "I'm _nine_ , I don't need anyone."

Zayn snorts into Safaa's hair. "Okay."

"Zayn?"

A hand claps him on the shoulder, slides off as he turns, and Harry's in front of him, nervously chewing on the thumbnail of his free hand. "Thought I heard your name. Can I talk to you?" he asks. He offers up a brief smile Liam's way, next, and then rocks back on his heels, waving dopily at Safaa. "Hiii."

She narrows her eyes suspiciously; Zayn has never been prouder. 

"I'm busy," Zayn says shortly. 

"It's okay," Liam says, and when he looks at her, she lifts a hand to where Waliyha is waiting a few steps away. "Me and the girls can find a pizza without you."

"Yeah," Safaa agrees, the traitor. "No boys allowed."

She wriggles around on his hip, and he can sense the losing battle if he tries to argue, so he sighs and lowers her onto the ground. "Fine. I'll be two minutes."

"Ten," Harry tells Liam. Zayn squints.

" _Five_."

"I can work with that," Harry says.

* * *

They drift back towards the electronics section, near the books, and Harry waits all of two seconds before jumping in:

"I've been wanting to talk to you. About - about what happened." 

"Why? Not like Niall has been all that into talking about it."

"Niall is…" Harry scratches at his nape, leans in close to inspect the trashy romance novels at his eyeline. "Niall's giving you space."

"How thoughtful," Zayn deadpans, brushing past Harry - only Harry grabs his wrist to stop him.

"Thing is," he starts quickly, quietly, "thing is, Niall's not really the type to do boyfriends. So when - so when he tries, and things kind of, um… backfire -"

"What?" Zayn whispers hoarsely. "You suck his dick 'til he feels better?"

Harry is silent, for just a moment.

"I don't..." He drops Zayn's arm, head bowed as he folds a hand over the top bookshelf. "I'm not going to pretend I don't know there's something going on between you two. I _do_ know you aren't together, though. And I know he feels like shit for hurting you, regardless of that fact -"

"Don't know why, can't hurt someone you're not even dating, right -" Zayn says, mocking, but -

"- But people fuck up," Harry interrupts. "People fuck up and make stupid fucking decisions all the time, Zayn."

"Sorry," Zayn scoffs, turning away to take a few, drifting steps along the aisle "Is any of this actually supposed to be helpful?"

He gets silence in response again, and he shakes his head and picks up a random book - some children's fantasy thing, thinks he got the first one for Waliyha for Christmas last year. "It's like I told Niall," he says, pretending to read the reviews on the inside of the book jacket. "He doesn't owe me a thing. Not an apology or an explanation or - or -…"

And he falters here, holds the book to his chest and rubs at the space between his brows with a trembling hand and even shakier voice: "Fuck, forget it, Harry, just go away."

But Harry stays, and asks carefully, "Something happened the last time you were there, didn't it?"

Zayn slams the book shut and shove it back on the shelf, scowling. "No."

"Because - because if it did," Harry continues on, still soft, still slow, like Zayn's backed into a corner, hackles raised, "then I can tell you that Niall's wanted to do that since he saw you again."

"Good for him," Zayn replies as he reaches for another book, the words steeped in disdain, and Harry sighs, puts a hand on Zayn's to get him to stop for a moment.

"I think it just - it freaked him out a little that you - that whatever happened, happened and you just left afterward -"

" _He_ freaked out?" Zayn says, loudly, and with a disbelieving laugh, stepping into Harry's space. "Are you fucking - _did_ he? Because I was pretty fucking freaked out myself - I've - that was the first time I'd ever even -"

And he's acutely aware, suddenly, of the fact that the store isn't empty, of the fact that there is an employee at the register, darting a curious look their way. Zayn shifts away, feels the muscle in his jaw jump as he grits his teeth. "None of it matters, anyway, so can you - can you please leave me alone -"

"I think it does, though," Harry says, frustratingly _calm_. "I think it matters to you more than you're willing to admit." He holds up his hands then, in defeat. "But, whatever. What do I know."

"Jack fucking shit," Zayn tells him, and Harry just half-smiles, lifts a shoulder in an approximation of a shrug. "And next time? Maybe don't do Niall's dirty work for him just because he asks you to -"

"He didn't," Harry interrupts. "He'd kill me if he knew I was here, said what he did was fucking stupid and you deserved to be mad at him, anyway."

"And you don't think he's right?"

"Oh, no, it was stupid," Harry agrees. "I just think you should maybe ask yourself why the idea of me hooking up with him pisses you off so much. Why the idea of him hooking up with anyone who isn't you pisses you off so much."

"Zayn?" He looks past Harry's shoulder. Liam's standing at the front of the aisle with his sisters; Waliyha's got a frozen pizza held atop her head, and Safaa's hugging a tub of ice cream to her chest very, very carefully. "We should go, don't want the ice cream to melt."

"Coming," Zayn says, thankful for a way out, but Harry clamps down on his shoulder again, ducks around to look him in the eye. 

"Listen, I'm pretty sure you'd deck me if you could right now, but I wanted to say I'm sorry. Okay? I knew he was interested in you, but I didn't know it was like this."

"Like what?"

Harry's lip quirk up at one end, apologetic. "Like it's got weight to it."

Zayn shuffles his feet and shakes Harry's hand off his shoulder. "My sisters are waiting."

"Yeah. Alright," Harry says, easy this time, accepting defeat. Zayn can feel his eyes on his back as he goes. "I'll see you around, Malik."

Zayn doesn't answer, and he doesn't look back; the four of them head off towards the checkout and it's not until they're placing the food on the conveyor belt that Liam asks, "Was that Harry? Like, Niall's Harry?"

Safaa sways on her feet, blinking dolefully up at him, arms held out a little in silent question. Zayn picks her up; she thumps her head onto his shoulder immediately and twists the hem of his sleeve up with tired fingers. "Yeah."

Liam combs a hand through Waliyha's hair, who is a bit dead on her feet now, too, if the way she leans against Liam and closes her eyes is any indication. "I didn't know you were friends now." 

Zayn holds tight to Safaa as she drifts off to sleep. 

"We aren't," he says.

* * *

**From: Harry**  
I have your sketchbook, by the way... Took it when Niall wasn't looking. I can meet you at yours to give it back..?

 **From: Zayn**  
Are u seriously blackmailing me into seeing u again?

 **From: Harry**  
Text me your address...

 **From: Zayn**  
Don't make me regret this

 **From: Harry**  
Never :)

* * *

Harry shows up just after eleven. Zayn's waiting for him on the top step - the girls' are sleeping, and Doniya and their mom have turned in for the night so he figures he, at least, won't have to answer a dozen questions about why Harry is here.

He waves when he sees Zayn, and offers up the sketchbook. Zayn takes it, sets it on his knees, and because Harry's Harry and he can't leave well enough alone, he drops down onto the cracked concrete step next to Zayn. They stay like that for a long while, watching as cars pass occasionally, as people's voices echo loud and unintelligible around the corner.

A siren wails in the distance, and Harry knocks him in the shoulder. 

"You can ask me anything, you know."

Zayn sets the sketchbook down and pulls his knees up, lopes his arms around his shins. 

"Harry, I really don't wanna talk about this anymore."

"I know," he answers, speaking in the same low tone Zayn is using. "I think it's just nice, sometimes, to talk to someone who gets it."

He stares expectantly, but when Zayn doesn't say anything, he just faces the street again, fingers tapping a beat on the step between his knees. And Zayn wants to tell him to leave, wants to just get up and walk back inside and close the door, but no one's out on the block right now, and his dad won't be back home for a few more hours so, really, when is he ever going to get this chance again?

"Harry."

He scuffs his Chelsea boot against the step and shoves his hands in his jacket pockets. "Yeah?"

"Are you gay?"

The question is spat out in a rush, blunt and inquisitive, and he winces immediately after, tries to apologize - but Harry just shakes his head. 

Zayn bounces up on the toes of his Docs, antsy. "So - so, what, like. Bi?"

Harry cants his head, frowning thoughtfully. "Look, Zayn, it's - there's nothing wrong with having a label for who you are. Not when you're choosing it for yourself, anyway," he adds, after a moment, and knocks Zayn in the shoulder with his own once more. "But not everyone needs one. Or wants one. Or... can even find one that feels like it fits."

Zayn picks at an old paint stain on the thigh of his jeans, resolutely doesn't look Harry's way as he asks, "And if you do find one?"

Harry shrugs. "Then you call yourself it. Or you don't. All that matters in the end is that you feel comfortable." He pokes Zayn in the chest. "That you feel like you."

He hops off the steps, feet hitting the bottom ground with a slap, and aims a lazy kick at Zayn's ankles, swaying in place. "And I don't mean for this to sound... however it's going to sound, but," Harry shakes out his hair, and tries to smile. "I'm just - I'm just telling you from personal experience..."

He trails off again, and Zayn urges: "What?"

Harry stuffs a hand in his pocket again, absentmindedly jingles his car keys and glances down the far-end of the street at something Zayn can't see just yet. Then they both watch a kid pedal by on a lowrider bike - a friend from middle school, dropped out before they got to tenth grade. He gives a low, "Malik," and a slow jerk of his chin that Zayn returns. 

Mercifully, and with more awareness than Zayn's given him credit for in the past, Harry waits until he's around the corner and out of sight before finishing carefully: "Ignoring it isn't going to make you any more straight than you've already tried."

He meets Zayn's eye then, doesn't give Zayn a chance to confirm or deny outright. And Zayn, for the span of a few breaths, manages to keep his composure before his brow furrows and his mouth presses into a thin, wavering line.

"It's just - not that simple," he says finally, because he has to tell someone _something_ , for once, _has to_ , because it'll eat him up from the inside otherwise. "Yeah, it's better than when our parents were kids. Better than ten years ago, even. But - but people act like a couple dozen states granting basic marriage rights that should never have been taken away in the first place means the fight's over or something."

His hand curls into a fist, and his heart hammers in his chest as he tries to keep his voice low. "Like the kind of people who think racism suddenly just went away because we swore in Obama. That's not - that's not how the world fucking works, Harry. Things like that don't just _end_. And it's not - it's _better_ , but it's not _easy_. Not here. Not in a neighborhood like mine."

"You're right," Harry says. "It's easier when you've got money and cars and a gated community -"

"And people who'll at least talk about you behind your back at, whatever, fucking PTA meetings and homecoming _boat_ parties instead of making you worry about whether or not you can paint over the scratched-in 'terrorist fuck' on the side of your family four-door before your dad gets home," Zayn says, all at once, biting, _hardened_ , because he's thought about this, more than anything else. Thought about the consequences of being different in all the ways that matter, that always somehow fucking _matter_ , even though they shouldn't. 

He's not sure if wants to add another potential slur to the list.

And Zayn knows Harry doesn't get it - can't, really - but he nods anyway. He combs a hand through his hair again, mouth twisted, and says, "I know it's - I know it's scary. That's the one thing that almost never changes about - about coming out."

He sits down next to Zayn again. "But at some point, you kind of just have to jump. Even if you start off small, with people you trust." He turns in his seat, shakes his head minutely. "Zayn, I _promise_ you, the more you let it out, the better you'll feel."

Zayn's eyes sting, and he closes them until the sensation passes. "You sound like a fucking self-help book," he says then. " _Chicken Soup for the Confused Teen Soul_."

Harry huffs out a laugh that trails off just as quick. "I won't say anything. Not if you don't want me to."

"But?"

" _But_ ," Harry intones. "I really think you should talk to Niall -"

Zayn shoves at him, scoffing, "Harry, no, I already told you -"

"Just - just listen for a sec, okay? It's Thursday. Do you work tomorrow?"

"What?" he asks, nonplussed. "Yeah, in the afternoon. Why?"

Harry rises again, twirling his keychain on his index finger. "I'm on my way to a friend's," he says. "Won't be back until Sunday night."

Zayn picks his sketchbook up and stands as well, backing up towards the front door. "So?"

"So, don't let our," he pauses, and his mouth twitches into a self-deprecating smile, "our admittedly tactless way of dealing with shit stop you from - from trying. So what if you're scared of how you feel? Of how he makes you feel."

Zayn sags against the door. 

"Be scared," Harry says. He shrugs. "Do what's scaring you, anyway."

* * *

At first, Zayn thinks he’ll text. But then the thought of waiting for a reply - of not getting the one he wants - has him forgo that almost immediately after he opens up a new message. In the end, it’s simple. He takes a bus, and one nerve-wracking walk, and now he’s ringing the doorbell, trying to keep himself from getting too jittery by pressing his hands up against the doorframe before he drops them and wrings them together instead, shifting weight from one foot to the other. He scrubs his hands over his face, combs through his hair and tugs on the ends and breathes out heavily before pounding on the door. 

Footsteps descend down the main staircase inside and he hears a low, "Alright, alright, hold the fuck on, H, did you lose the key I gave you -"

Niall's sentence dies in his throat when he opens the door.

“Hi,” Zayn says.

"Zayn, what're you…" he trails off uncertainly, but there's this odd sort of hopeful tinge to his words. Zayn clears his throat. 

"We have to talk."

"Yeah," Niall agrees distantly, hand gripping the door jamb tight.

"We should," Zayn repeats.

Niall nods dumbly. 

Zayn takes a breath, and then another. 

"I don't want to," he says, and before he can second-guess himself, before he can lose his nerve and let his confidence break, he charges forward, hands reaching, cups Niall's jaw and kisses him, _hard_ , eyes shut tight.

Niall inhales sharp through his nose in surprise, and his hands curl around Zayn's wrists to break apart with a jerk back. He holds Zayn off for a few terrifying, exhilarating moments, eyes wide.

"What -"

"No talking," Zayn says, soft and impatient, stomach twisting. "Kiss me back." 

Niall blinks, and then combs Zayn's hair back, hands falling to his neck, and _does_. 

Zayn reaches blindly behind him for the handle to shut the front door and they stumble across the foyer, start up the stairs with Niall's hands under his jaw and Niall's tongue in his mouth and Niall's body pushing until Zayn's back hits the wall halfway up. His breath shoves out of him; Niall's mouth drags away from his when they part and he moves just enough to reach up and tug his shirt off, flings it over the banister without looking, and they make their way up the steps with his hands on Zayn's jeans.

When they hit the landing, he yanks the button fly until the waistband slings low on Zayn's hips, and Zayn's breathless by the time they make it to Niall's room, barely has time to process what's happening before Niall's walking him in the direction of the bed, shoving him down gently with a hand to his stomach.

Zayn falls onto it with a bounce, scrambles up towards the headboard on his elbows and grabs Niall by his nape, bucks up when Niall drops his weight and bites a kiss at the curve of Zayn's shoulder before shifting lower, lower, lower and - and Zayn's fucked Liam more times than he can remember but he's never felt more turned on from so little. Never felt more _alive_.

His clothes get peeled off and discarded at the edge of the bed, and then a hand curls around his dick; Zayn arches, makes a noise in his throat that might be a laugh, might be choked-off gasp of disbelief at waiting nineteen fucking years for this to come along. Niall lifts his head in question.

He snakes up Zayn's body, stretches out along his side propped up on an elbow. Brushes Zayn's hair off his forehead and studies him. "Not freaking out?" he asks, and it's not patronizing and it's not judgmental, and Zayn could kiss him for it -

 _Can_ kiss him for it -

So he hooks an arm around his neck to pull him in until Niall drops his other hand on the bed, knuckles curling up against Zayn's shoulder. He exhales tremulously, with Niall's mouth on his. He's shaking, but for once, it's not out of fear or shame or self-loathing: it's a thrum of anticipation for what's coming next that he can feel all the way down to his damn toes.

Niall hums a soft, happy laugh, pecks Zayn on the mouth and starts his way down again. "I'm gonna make you come with my mouth first," he says, as nonchalant as if he's reading off the forecast for the week. 

He digs between the edge of mattresses for a moment and comes up with a bottle of lube - the sight of it makes a low, sweeping _ache_ settle in Zayn's gut. Niall's teeth graze the tattoo above his hip, and Zayn licks his lips, lets his eyes flutter shut. 

"And then with my fingers," Niall continues, idly drifting the bottle along the back of Zayn's right thigh when Zayn plants his foot flat on the bed.

His weight disappears off the bed then, long enough for Zayn to open his eyes again - just in time to catch Niall grab something out of a drawer and hook his thumbs into his boxer briefs to tug them off before climbing back onto the mattress.

He sits up between Zayn's thighs, finishes: "And then you're gonna fuck me." His hands come down on either side of Zayn, pushing into the comforter. "Sound good?"

He's still smiling, but it's a little nervous and a lot tentative, teeth worrying at his bottom lip because Zayn can drop everything, right now, can get up and plead temporary insanity - can act like this isn't happening, or has been happening, or will always happen, whether it's with Niall or it's not. 

Only Zayn's so tired of fighting. And he's so tired of being scared, of averting his eyes and averting his thoughts. Tired of looking at Niall and thinking _I like you so much_ just to have a cruel, little voice in his head, this - this morally disreputable, Jiminy-fucking-Cricket list all the ways in which the very idea of that is wrong.

"Zayn?" 

Niall shifts, and drops whatever was in his hand on the bed - a condom, Zayn can see it now. A condom, so Zayn can fuck him. "Sorry, I," Niall starts on an aborted breath, shakes his head, "I, um, we don't - do you -"

"No -" Zayn sits up so fast their foreheads knock together, and Niall hisses in pain, mumbles a laughing _ooow_ and rubs near his hairline. "Shit - I mean, yes. Ow. Sorry, what's, um, what's the question?"

Niall's laugh trails off, and he trails the pad of a finger over Zayn's clavicle. He asks, careful and maybe a touch uncertain, too: "Do you want this?"

Zayn takes a breath, and smiles, and tells Niall, more sure than he's ever been of anything, "Yeah. I do."

Niall grins _blooms_ , his eyes crinkling up in the corners, and he pushes Zayn's shoulder until he lies back; he shimmies his way towards Zayn's hips, takes his dick in hand again to swallow him down, and Zayn watches a bobbing head of dirty-blond hair find a rhythm and figures that voice in his head can go fuck itself. 

He's got better things to do than listen to it, now.


	4. to be steeped in your gaze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Oh," Rochelle points to Zayn, looks to Niall for confirmation. "Is this - ?"
> 
> Niall grins, wide and infectious. He has a hand on Zayn's back, nudging him forward just slightly. "Yeah, this is my - um. Zayn."
> 
> Rochelle feigns a gasp and holds out a hand to shake Zayn's. "Well," she says, and glances at Marvin. "This feels a little special - Niall's never introduced us to an _um_ before, has he, babe?"
> 
> "Don't," Niall says with a wince, and a self-deprecating laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So i've been pretty vague, far as where they live goes, mostly because I have been to California a whole one times!!!, but distance-wise/neighborhood-wise, I've sort of been going about it as if Zayn is in the East LA-ish area, and Niall is in Santa Monica, for reference. Also shh pretend Zayn just never gets carded to get into bars and clubs also also ask me if I will ever write a real smut scene go on ask me har har har [whispers] no :(
> 
>  
> 
> **((Please refer back to the warnings in the first part - the self-hate/internalized homophobia is heavy in this one. There is also a panic attack.))**

* * *

Zayn wakes up with the sun in his eyes and an arm around his waist, and there's a pro/con list already writing itself in his head that mostly just involves breakfast (pro) and leaving the bed (con) when Niall stirs behind him, smacking his lips sleepily. He presses a kiss to the nape of Zayn's neck, the curve of his shoulder, says with mouth mashed at the joint, "You up?"

"Yeah."

Niall tightens the arm he's got slung across Zayn to tug him in. He asks, halting, "Are you gonna leave again?" 

Zayn covers a hand with his, says, "Yeah," and when Niall replies with a petulant, disappointed sound, Zayn turns in his arms with a smile. "I have work."

"Mhm," Niall lifts a disbelieving brow.

Morning breath be damned, Zayn kisses him, slow and sweet. Niall makes a noise like a mewl, and touches their foreheads together. He says, already breathless, "Jesus."

"What," Zayn laughs, and Niall drags him nearer with a hand low on his back, tugs 'til they're flush. 

"Nothing, just. Gonna be thinking about you all day," he answers, mouth catching Zayn's, smearing along his jaw to the curve of his ear. A hand grabs Zayn's thigh under the covers, guides it until Zayn's got his leg hitched over Niall's hip. "What made you come over?"

"Harry," he answers, because he might as well be honest. Niall shoves his head into the pillow to bury a groan.

"I _told_ him not to -"

"It helped," Zayn admits. "I mean - it felt like it helped."

Niall pulls back a bit, squints against the sunlight, and the heel of his palm bumps heavy under Zayn's jaw in the next breath, thumb skimming down the line of his pulse point.

He's gone soft, and reflective, gaze flicking between Zayn's eyes and his mouth.

"I shouldn't have kissed you," he says. 

Zayn feels his face fall, but Niall's already vehement, giving his head a shake and shifting closer. "No - shit, sorry, not now, not now," and he kisses Zayn then, like he's proving a point. "Sorry, I meant like. The first time."

"You didn't want to?"

"No, I did," Niall says, laughing lightly. "I really - I really did, but, um. I knew you weren't in the right… state of mind for it. It was - I don't know. Kinda wish it happened differently."

"I don't," Zayn says.

"No?"

Zayn shifts to settle on Niall's chest instead. "First time I kissed a guy," he says. "I don't wanna take that back."

Niall brushes an idle hand through his hair. "What's the verdict?"

"You mean after I freaked the fuck out and bailed?" he says with a short, deprecating laugh. The pads of Niall's fingers drift feather-light across his shoulder, down the side of his ribs and back up again, and Zayn fights off a shiver. "Weird. Good."

"Weird-good," Niall muses, a smile in his voice. "Yeah, I'll take it."

Zayn laughs again, throatily, hauls himself up and over so he can straddle Niall's hips. He's naked - they both are - but the comforter is bunched around them, and Niall looks sated and happy, and Zayn can't bring himself to feel too self-conscious about it.

"I'm sorry. About what you walked in on," Niall says then, tapping out a beat on Zayn's left ankle. "Me and Harry, we... we're not really good with boundaries. And it was a…" he trails off, searching for words, free hand curled into a fist and bumping the bed before he thumps it down hard and gives a noisy, frustrated exhale. "I'm just - I'm sorry."

Zayn sucks his bottom lip in. He doesn't want to say _It's fine_ , because it doesn't feel like it is, but they also aren't - weren't -

 _Aren't_ dating, but. But the idea of it happening again makes something like lead settle in his gut.

"Don't fuck him after this," he says, hushed and determined, and a beat later, Niall pushes himself up. Zayn sinks into his lap, combs a hand through the hair at his nape and then tugs just hard enough so Niall's head tips back. "Alright?"

"I won't," Niall says, hands set at Zayn's waist. Zayn twists his hair tighter; Niall makes a noise, eyes hooded, hands slipping to grip the backs of his thighs. He licks his lips. "I promise."

Zayn kisses his nose, and then his mouth, just because he can - because he _wants_ to, and because Niall wants him to. He slings an arm around Niall's shoulders, breath catching with a laugh when Niall grabs him, sweeps him under the knees to pin him to the bed.

"When do you have to leave?"

Awkwardly, Zayn picks his head up to read the alarm clock sitting on Niall's bedside table. It's barely nine. "I start at noon. Have to leave soon if I want to have enough time to go home and shower."

"Noo," Niall huffs, and drops his weight. "Shower here. Let me drive you. Then you can spend the two hours you would've spent on the bus with me, instead."

"Clingy," Zayn says delightedly. "Yeah, alright."

"Woo," Niall cheers against his mouth. "Good, we can do breakfast and stuff. No bacon, right…? So, veggie omelette," he keeps pausing between soft kisses, "lots of coffee," the next one gets pressed to Zayn's mouth like a smile, "maybe give you head while we watch cartoons on the sofa." 

"Is _that_ what rich people do in the morning? I assumed briefcases would be involved," Zayn replies, and he can feel the way Niall's nose wrinkles up when he laughs.

"Nope." He aims one last kiss to Zayn's mouth and climbs out of bed. "Blowjobs and _Adventure Time_ : the true breakfast of champions. Shower's through there," he gestures to the en-suite, and pulls on a pair of boxer briefs and a white crew neck he snatches up off the floor.

Zayn rolls onto his stomach and reaches behind him towards the head of the bed for a pillow, gathers it beneath his chin. "I don't have a change of clothes."

Niall shrugs. "Just wear something of mine," his eyes trails down the line of Zayn's back, to where the comforter is tangled around his thighs. "Or don't wear anything at all."

Zayn buries a smile into the pillow.

"Twenty minutes," Niall tells him, backing out of the room. He's smiling, too. "Shower and change, and your omelette will be waiting."

He's gone then, and Zayn eventually sits up with the pillow in his lap; it's the first time he's been alone since he'd felt like jumping out of his skin standing at Niall's front door. First time he's had to breathe, and think.

He kissed a guy last night. He _fucked_ one, and the world didn't stop turning.

"Zayn?"

Zayn lifts his head. Niall's at the doorway, spatula in hand, the remnants of a smile still building at the corners of his mouth. 

"You good?"

"Yeah," Zayn says, absentminded, glancing away. Then he laughs - small, and private, and wondering - and meets Niall's eye. "Yeah," he says again, with conviction.

They both just stare for a moment, perfectly content, before Niall clears his throat. He waves the spatula at Zayn menacingly. 

"Be down in twenty minutes," he threatens. "Or I eat your portion whole."

* * *

Just before noon, Niall pulls up in front of the store and shifts the car into Park. He turns a bit in his seat, eyes hidden behind Ray-Bans. "What time do you get out?"

"Six." Zayn unbuckles his seatbelt, sets his fingers on the door handle before he stops. "Um. Do you want - I mean, can I -"

"Come over later?" Niall nods shortly, cheerfully. "Hope so. Harry won't be around all weekend, we can take advantage of it."

"Okay," Zayn says with a light, nervous laugh. "Yeah, that sounds - okay." He tilts his head the craft store's way. "I have to go."

All he wants to do is lean over the center console and kiss Niall goodbye, but the sidewalks are busy, and the windows are down, and maybe he can learn how to have what he wants in private rooms behind closed doors, but this still feels like a line he can't cross.

He thinks Niall gets it, though; that he can sense the anxiety. He reaches over, out of sight from the open windows, and traces a featherlight path across Zayn's wrist with the pad of his index finger, quick as can be.

"Later?" he checks, and Zayn nods, lost for words. Then Niall smiles. 

"Have a good day," he says. "I'll see you soon."

Zayn exits the car, waves when Niall pulls out into the street, and opens the door to the shop with a grin he can't contain.

Can't stop it, either - he heads to the back to clock in, delirious, and when he makes it to the cashier area where Liam is with the same, whacked out smile on his face, she gives him a bizarre look.

"Hi," Zayn laughs, and launches when he sees her to scoop her up into a hug. "Afternoon."

Liam pets his hair. "Someone got laid last night," she says idly, low enough so only he can hear.

He smiles, this time slightly more stilted, and gives a shrug when he pulls away. Liam rolls her eyes and pulls her smock over head. "C'mon, like I care. I'm taking my lunch - was it good?"

Zayn drops his own smock on, around his neck, wraps the strings to tie it at the back. "Was what good?" he tries, but he has to bite down another smile afterward, and laughs again.

"Oh my God," Liam shakes her head, but she's smiling, too. She heads around checkout and pushes with her back to the door. "You're useless. You want fries?"

"Yeah, please," Zayn tells her. 

"Whoever it was," she says. "She obviously scrambled your brain."

Zayn tenses, and laughs awkwardly, but Liam doesn't pick up on it. The door chimes as she goes, and Zayn shakes himself out of his stupor and gets to work.

* * *

There's a tiny, red **2** over his inbox when he gets a spare moment to check it, and he lights up at the sight of Niall's name. _Had to Skype one of my friends in LA for an album thing right after you left_ , the first one says. _Told me I looked like an idiot and then asked who the hell bit my shoulder so hard hahaha_

And the second: _That's not me complaining , btw. I'm home alone all weekend. Feel free to bite me anywhere you'd like!_

 _Didn't hate it, then?_ Zayn texts back, thumbs flying over the screen of his phone, and he checks out both customers that meander his way in the time it takes Niall to respond.

_Malik , the only thing I hated was that you had work in the morning and I couldn't return the favor. The fucking not the biting. Think I had the biting down pretty good hahaha_

Zayn chuckles, and gets another text before the screen goes blank:

_Can I pick you up after work :)_

He texts back a thumbs up emoji, and a kissy face. Niall sends him back heart eyes. 

Zayn's got no chance of hiding his smile, after that.

* * *

That weekend feels like the start of something. He can't spend the whole time there, like he wants, but he's got hours alone with this one person, _hours_ of each day to figure out what he likes, and how he likes it and it's - it's new. It's nice.

Harry comes back to Niall’s mid-afternoon on Sunday. He takes one look at Zayn, sitting on a stool in the kitchen in boxers and one of Niall’s shirts, watching Niall cook dinner, and smiles in a way that’s so completely genuine and open that Zayn quells the need to hunch in on himself self-consciously and smiles back.

“What’re you making?” he asks Niall, and glances at Zayn. “Chicken soup?”

Zayn huffs out a laugh at his lap. 

“What? No, don’t be weird, H.” He jabs Harry in the side with the stick end of a wooden spoon until Harry skirts away and around the island, snorting. “Go away, I’m on a date.”

“Fine. I’ll be in the guest room,” he says, disappearing into the hall. He ducks back in a second later, hand gripping the edge of the wall. “Listening to music on my headphones. Loudly.”

“Go away,” Niall repeats firmly, beet-red and half-laughing.

He goes back to cooking, humming something under his breath, and Zayn clears his throat, hugs his middle and says, “Uh, so. A - a date?”

“Shh,” Niall replies through a smile, eyes locked on the pan. 

“I have to go home, after dinner,” Zayn reminds him. 

“I know.” He looks over his shoulder, soft smile tugging at his mouth. “You can be with me for a few more hours, at least. Right?”

Zayn takes a breath and lets it out. He nods. 

“Right.”

* * *

**From: Niall**  
Went to visit you work and you weren't there !!! :(

 **From: Zayn**  
Stalker :) I’m off, found a building to work on, on my way there now. Abandoned auto body shop, near that park with the pond? Come visit

 **From: Niall**  
Are you asking me to commit a CRIME with you ahaha

 **From: Zayn**  
U game???

 **From: Niall**  
Be there in an hour !

* * *

Niall shows up in head to toe black.

Zayn lets out a yelp of laughter and claps a hand over his mouth, says _Babe_ , endeared beyond belief, before he can help himself. Niall smiles and then frowns and _then_ tugs his black knit beanie further down his forehead. 

“I thought we were supposed to be - I don’t know, like covert ops - I’ve never done this before!” 

He’s got this grumpy expression on his face, Zayn can see it even in the fading light of day, and he steps over the rubble and dirt of the alley. “We’re not robbing a fucking bank, you dork,” he says, grinning. “It’s just a little... systematic beautification via street art.”

“God, it sounds so much hotter when you say it,” Niall says, studying the piece Zayn’s already begun to work on; it’ll take a few days to finish, but Zayn’s planned it down to the very last detail. “Harry asked me where I was going earlier and I panicked and said, ‘Uh, bricklaying?’ which I think he just assumed is a gay innuendo thing, so -”

Something rattles against a garbage can at the far end of the alley and Niall jumps, shoulders hunching, and darts a furtive glance around. “What happens if a cop sees you, anyway?” he asks, with a forced nonchalance, and Zayn picks up one of his stencils and shakes the spray can in his hand.

“What,” he simpers, tone teasing and low, crouching down to fill in part of the piece. “Is the poor little rich boy afraid he’s going to get caught?”

A thrill runs through Zayn. He's in his element, here, with these stencils and spray cans, with these back alleys and low foot traffic. He remembers what it was like when he first started - putting up amateur, cartoonish pieces, signed with a tiny comic-font _ZAP!_ in the corners. He’d practically jump out of his skin any time he heard so much as the rustle of rats digging through garbage, or kids voices shouting a block down. 

When he stands and turns, Niall’s in front of him, faint smirk in place. “Fuck off,” he tells Zayn, but he’s laughing quietly, too. He eyes keep flicking from the wall behind Zayn’s head to his mouth. “This looks really great.”

Zayn drops the can in the weeds coming up from the cracks, lets the stencil flutter to the floor. “It’s not finished, it’s a little chaotic still.”

“Take a compliment,” Niall suggests lightly.

His mouth twitches into a smile. “Thanks.”

Niall nods, distracted, and reaches up to knock Zayn under the chin with curled fingers. He leans in to kiss him; someone shouts in the distance, not close at all but - very suddenly - Zayn panics. He takes a sharp breath in and shoves just hard enough at Niall’s chest, the move making him stumble back a half-step himself. 

He shifts, settles against a paintless part of the brick, breathing hard. One of Niall’s hands is still extended towards him and he sticks it in his pocket instead and says, “Um."

Zayn licks his lips, darts a glance out to the street. There’s no one in the alley, but he can hear cars rush past and people arguing and a fucking helicopter in the distance and he wants to cry almost as much as he wants to punch the brick ‘til his knuckles bleed.

“Sorry,” they say in the unison.

Zayn’s mouth snaps shut, brows knit together in confusion - why is Niall even apologizing in the first place - but Niall takes an abortive step closer before he swings back into place, placating hands held up. 

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, and when Zayn sighs, and bends his head to scrub a hand through his hair, he adds, “Hey - seriously, Zayn, my fault -”

“Your fault?” Zayn chokes out a laugh. “Sure.”

“It...” Niall pauses, and then joins Zayn against the wall, just close enough for their shoulders to touch. “It’s weird. Sometimes. Like...” he trails off again, eyes on Zayn. He smiles contritely, lifts a shoulder. “Like you know who you are but you’re not sure if you want the whole world to know yet, either. Like you’re in a zoo and you think everyone’s staring, even when they aren’t.”

Zayn looks down at his boots. “Thought you didn’t give a fuck about what people think of you.”

“I don’t,” Niall answers, head cocked and mouth pulling into a frown for a beat. “Usually. But I still remember what it was like when I occasionally did.”

Zayn tips his head back against the bricks, sighs and knocks it back just a touch too hard. He winces. "I feel..." he laughs, and he isn't sure why. "Stupid. Like, inadequate or something."

"Don't," Niall reassures him. And then, with a gentle knock of their shoulders. "Maybe - I don’t know, maybe when you feel a little more at ease we can go on a trip somewhere different. Not here."

"Not somewhere where I think I’ll be recognized?” Zayn laughs again, angry with himself, angry at the way his eyes well before he grits his teeth and controls it. “Why are you even here? It’s gotta be boring, right. Exhausting. Fucking around in your house on my off days instead of being with someone who won’t have a panic attack if you touch them in public.”

“Zayn, don’t,” Niall sighs again. He’s speaking so softly, head bowed so his voice is right in Zayn’s ear. “I have fun with you. It’s not work. It doesn’t feel like work.”

Slowly, his fingers stretch, knuckles brushing against Zayn’s. Zayn closes his eyes, and fights the urge to move away. 

“Finish your piece,” Niall says. “Or what you can do in this light, at least.”

"And then?”

“And then I take you home,” Niall says simply. “And I’ll see you on your next day off.”

He pushes off the brick wall, leans down to pick up the spray can.

“C’mon,” he hands it over. Zayn takes it. “Finish.”

Zayn looks up. It’s nearly dusk now. 

“Might take awhile,” he says, and Niall just shrugs. 

“It’s alright,” he says with a brief smile. “I can wait.”

* * *

He and Niall don’t get much time alone. 

Zayn never invites him over, never hangs out with Niall too long in his own neighborhood, beyond Niall picking him up from the craft store every once in awhile. And Zayn learns, very quickly, that Niall wasn’t lying when he’d said he and Harry weren’t big on boundaries. Harry, at least, has the slightest amount of tact to suddenly have _plans_ when he knows Zayn’ll be over, but more often than not, he’s wandering around some unseen corner of the mansion, or bopping around in the kitchen, or waggling his eyebrows at Zayn over breakfast. 

He thinks - well, sometimes, he thinks Harry doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. Sometimes, he thinks Harry’s doing it for a very specific reason. Like if he’s around enough, Zayn will stop having a knee-jerk reaction to put distance between he and Niall whenever there’s another person in the room. Like if the three of them are watching a movie, and Niall settles an arm around him, Zayn can cuddle in and drop his head onto Niall’s shoulder, and know that the worst that can happen after is that Harry will pretend to gag and throw microwaved popcorn at them.

(And, honestly, _sometimes_ , Zayn thinks he’s just doing it to be a shit.

“I’m gonna kill you,” Niall says with a groan, once, after Harry barges in under the pretense of looking for a hairbrush while Niall’s riding Zayn, grinding back onto his dick, hands on his shoulders to pin him down. He falls onto Zayn’s chest like a dead weight, snatches the blankets up and over them, and aims a middle finger Harry’s way when he barks out a laugh and draws out an _Oooops_. 

And Zayn laughs, out of breath, when Niall shouts, “You don’t even fucking brush your hair!”)

Harry’s here, now, though he hasn’t shown his face since last night. It’s Sunday, late afternoon, maybe - Zayn has no idea what time it is, he can’t tell with the curtains shut, and they accidentally knocked over the alarm clock hours ago. 

He’s off from work, off from babysitting duty, so they’ve been in bed all day, lazing around, dozing occasionally, until Niall finally slips out from under him. He stands and swings his arms back and forth to stretch, groaning in relief when his joints crack; Zayn reaches for a pillow, curls it up under him and nuzzles into it. "Where are you going?"

"Shower.” Niall rolls out the kinks in his neck, crouches down quick to kiss Zayn's shoulder. "I might permanently stick to you soon."

"And that would be bad why," Zayn mumbles sleepily, eyes shut. Niall laughs, already distant, and Zayn hears the sound of a drawer opening, and then another. A door swinging open, the shower turning on.

It's still running when Niall says, "Hey."

Zayn cracks open an eye; Niall's head is poking out from the door of the en-suite bathroom, hair rumpled and smile crooked. "You coming?" he asks before disappearing again, and Zayn buries a grin into the pillow.

He drags himself out of bed to shuffle over. Niall's already in, glass door shut, head ducked under the spray of the shower head directly above him. "Um," Zayn tugs open the door, bites his lip and breathes through the way his stomach twists when Niall looks at him. "Just - get in?"

"Or watch?" Niall says, tipping his head back until the spray's hitting his neck and chest instead. He's squinting, holding a hand up so the water doesn't get in his eyes. "Kinda prefer you get in though. You're getting the floor wet."

"Oh," Zayn glances down - there's already a puddle at his feet - and hops in, grabbing onto Niall's arm for balance. "Shit, sorry."

Niall laughs quietly, encircles an arm around his waist and uses the other to shut the door again. "You're good."

Zayn comes in close, mouth dragging back and forth along Niall’s collarbone. "I've never been in a shower this big with another person," he says, and lets his eyes trail along the space. Niall could fit three more people in here, easy.

"Well, you should do it at least once in your life. It's pretty revolutionary," Niall tells him, manhandling him around so he's directly under the showerhead. Zayn wipes his eyes, pushes wet hair off his forehead and when he peeks at Niall, he's smiling. 

"What?"

Niall just shakes his head. He ducks in to kiss the pulse points of Zayn’s neck - first one side, then the other. He bites a mark into the juncture where his neck meets his shoulder; Zayn sucks in a breath, shuffles around carefully and presses Niall up against the tiles with a shove. Forgetful, Niall tips his head back, knocking it hard against the shower wall. “Ow - mother - _Jesus_.”

Zayn laughs, forces Niall’s thighs open with a knee; he moans softly when Niall combs a hand through the hair at Zayn’s nape and tugs. “Was thinking,” Niall tells him, between kisses, “maybe I could come with you to help you finish your piece before it gets dark tonight.”

Zayn feigns a horrified gasp, and then a real one, when Niall grips the back of his thigh and cups his ass. “Offering to break the law with me? In _broad daylight_? Is being around a delinquent a bad influence on you, Niall Horan?”

“You are _such_ an asshole,” Niall tells him, but it sounds sweet - sounds sweet for someone whose dick’s pressing pretty fucking insistently against the dip of Zayn’s hip at the moment, anyway. 

He pushes the hair out of his eyes, crooks a forefinger under Zayn’s chin, thumb tapping under the swell of his bottom lip, and falls silent. Zayn relaxes his grip a touch, licks the water off his lips. “C'mon, what?” he asks again, and Niall opens his mouth to say something and changes his mind. He skates the pads of his fingers across the cut of Zayn’s cheekbone then, mouth lilting up at the corners. 

“Think you’re a better influence on me than you realize,” he says, walking them forward so Zayn’s back is to the shower door, this time. He kisses Zayn again, unhurried and deep, breaking away every few moments for a trembling breath in. 

Zayn drops a hand, starts to jack him slowly - and it’s way too telling that neither of them starts when the bathroom door opens. 

“Aquaphor!” Harry shouts. “New tattoo! Itchy. Need ointment. Niall, _help me_.”

Niall sighs. “Didn’t you check _any of the other rooms in this house_ before this one?”

“Yes, of _course_ I did, I found nothing,” Harry laments. “ _Niall_ , my ribs are so itchy and dry, I’m gonna die.”

"So stop getting tattoos, idiot!"

"Never!" Harry bellows like a war cry.

Niall rests his temple against Zayn’s. He says casually, "Hey, Harry?"

"Yeah!"

"Can you - ummm," Niall grabs Zayn tight by the elbow when Zayn's hand squeezes reflexively. Belatedly, he figures he probably shouldn't be touching Niall's dick with Harry two feet and one very transparent shower door away from them; he lets go, and Niall huffs out a laugh, hand sliding over slick-wet skin to rest at the small of Zayn's back.

Outside the shower, Harry bangs open a cabinet door. "Yesss?" he asks, distracted, and Niall's looking right at Zayn now, squinting against the spray of the shower head, smiling as he licks his lips.

He doesn't respond right away, just first shoves the hair of his eyes yet again. He cranes his neck, lips at the shell of Zayn’s ear to whisper, "You can fuck me in here, if you want," inaudible to Harry over the sound of the shower running.

"Styles, get the hell out," Zayn says then, immediate, eyes on Niall, who laughs louder, this time, head tipping back so the line of his throat's exposed.

"I know there is Aquaphor somewhere in this house," Harry says, refusing to give in. "Niall, your step-brother is covered in tattoos, and you’re seriously telling me there’s _nothing_ in this house that will help - ?"

Niall growls, tilts his top half sideways and yanks open the shower door enough to poke his head out. “If I tell you where it is, will you do me a favor?”

"Name my firstborn after you, sacrifice a goat, whatever -"

"Grab one of my cards from my wallet, book me a hotel for next weekend," Niall says. "Somewhere nice, really queer friendly." He closes the door, and pauses before adding, loud over the spray of the water: "Maybe Bay Area, I don't mind a drive!"

“Will do. And - ?” 

“It’s in a wicker basket in the linen closet downstairs, in the laundry room," Niall answers. "Top shelf."

Harry singsongs _looove youuu_ , and the door closes behind him a second later. Niall sags against Zayn, head thumping gently onto his shoulder. Smiling, Zayn asks, “What was that about?”

Niall hums something soft, and kisses Zayn’s shoulder. 

“How would you like to go on a vacation?” he asks.

* * *

He checks with his parents first, makes sure they won't need him. When his mother asks _What for, Sunshine?_ he gives them an edited version of the truth: he's been working all summer, all _year_ , and he could really use a weekend out of the city with a couple friends, no big deal.

His dad claps him on the back, and then cups his chin quick. "Have fun," he says. And: "Just make sure you won't get in trouble with work."

That part's a little harder. 

He's off Saturday, but he's got a closing shift Friday and an afternoon shift Sunday that he has to work around. He asks Liam when he goes over to hers one night, after work. They're sprawled on her bed together, Zayn with his back against the wall, flipping through the comic in his lap with one hand. Liam's on her stomach, rummaging through her makeup bag and eyeing Zayn in that way she has that usually means she's going to make him try on mascara at some point.

He mentions it casually, at first - keeps his eyes on a comic panel and says that he's going on a trip, nothing big, but would she mind covering for him. Liam doesn't respond, stays silent long enough that Zayn tosses his comic aside to look at her.

She's studying her makeup bag, seems a little distracted, and when she notices him staring she smiles weakly and sits herself back onto her calves. "Are..." she cants her head, mouth twisting absentmindedly. "Are you seeing someone?"

"No," Zayn says, but even he can tell the way it comes out - rushed and automatic, a blatant lie. She calls him on it with a shake of her head.

“No, I just. I don't care, I mean that's the whole point of breaking up, right? But it's."

Liam hesitates, adjusts in her seat to sit cross-legged next to him. "You seem different. Lately." She blinks up at him. "Like, less sad.”

"Well. I'm not seeing anyone," Zayn says, and it manages to come out only _slightly_ forced, this time.

Liam doesn't call him out again, just tucks a lock of her behind her ear and smiles. "Alright," she says. "I'll do it."

He tackles her onto her bed and slobbers a wet kiss onto her cheek. "Thank you ," he says, "I owe you ten million favors for this," and she just wipes her cheek off on his shoulder and laughs.

* * *

They leave early in the afternoon on Thursday, Niall driving them up the coast until both their stomach's are rumbling and he has to pull into the parking lot of the nearest restaurant they can find, bemoaning about the gnawing pit of hunger growing in him. It's one of those sports-heavy places: flat screens hanging every few feet, memorabilia on the walls, all about wings and burgers and beer.

They get a booth in the corner, and Niall's playing an intense game of footsie with him that _apparently_ involves shin kicks when Zayn realizes he's on a date.

"We're on a date," he says, low, leaning forward. Niall looks torn between laughing and launching over the table to kiss him.

"We are," he replies. "First date. Well."

He waves a hand that Zayn takes to mean both _first one outside_ and _only sort of counts-ish because this isn't really a first date atmosphere_. He _is_ wearing one of his nicer tops though - that soft grey sweater Zayn had said he liked, once.

"We'll go on more," Niall says then. "This weekend, I mean. Like, a proper one. With glass plates that somehow never get smudged and snobby waiters with wine lists."

"Do you even drink wine?"

"No," Niall says with a laugh, foot knocking against Zayn's.

"I don't think I really have anything to wear to a place like that," Zayn says, uneasy, but Niall's already shaking his head.

"I'm mostly joking. Nothing too fancy. Although, I'm pretty sure you could wear an outfit made entirely of like, garbage bags and reflective gear and still have your face, so it wouldn't even matter. They'd just be like, 'Wow, who's this chiseled Adonis rockin' Glad Forceflex looks while us mere mortals look on in awe.'"

Zayn wrinkles his nose up and looks down at his menu with a smile. "You're weird."

"You like me anyway," Niall argues.

"Yeah," Zayn says, eyes flicking up to catch Niall's. "I do."

* * *

Niall orders a beer, and Zayn figures fuck it, and orders one too. Their waitress eyes his ID for a long while before he offers up his sweetest, most beguiling smile. 

"Two drinks," she tells him then, firm, handing it back. "That's it."

"Witchcraft," Niall says, once they've both got glasses set down in front of him. "Pretty boy _witchcraft_."

He kicks Zayn in the shin gently as he speaks, purses his mouth quick like he's blowing a kiss. Zayn laughs behind the rim of his glass and figures as far as first dates go, this is damn near close to perfect. 

(They make it to the Bay Area around ten, and Zayn means to walk around, he really does - but Niall tosses his duffel bag down in the corner, takes a long look at the bed and then at Zayn, brows raised, and Zayn laughs, and closes the distance.

They can explore tomorrow.)

* * *

After breakfast on Friday, Niall takes him to the Castro.

Zayn's been to San Francisco before, a number of times - on a few long trips with his family as a kid during the summer - but never like this. He spends all day looking around in an attempt to soak everything in, and every time Niall comes in close to point something out, to make a joke, to drop an absentminded kiss to his shoulder, Zayn thinks he can get used to this, whether its in the Castro or its not.

They go to an American grill place for dinner; nothing's particularly cheap on the menu, when Zayn looks, but there's pool tables and a long bar at one end, and Niall waves a hand away when Zayn offers to split - _my weekend for you_ , he says, _don't worry about it_ \- and Zayn pulls a face.

"At least let me buy the drinks?"

"With your clearly-not-twenty-one ID?" Niall asks, and Zayn laughs, and rolls his eyes. 

"I'll give you the cash. You can buy it." He's standing in front of the stool Niall's on, swiveled around so he's facing out instead of the long countertop, and Zayn draws a pattern onto the bare part of knee exposed from the rip in Niall's jeans. "You don't have to pay for everything."

Niall pauses, and nods once, slow, maybe a bit sheepish. "You don't _want_ me to pay for everything."

"No," Zayn says. "I don't."

"Okay," he sighs. " _Fine_ , fine." He makes a move like he's going to grab Zayn by the hips before faltering, checking. Zayn forces himself to watch Niall and no one else; he shuffles in a step.

Niall's hands settle. Zayn's heart beats a little faster, but the corners of his mouth lifts.

"Niall?"

He turns his head at the voice, and brightens even more, mouth dropping open as he gasps happily. There's a couple walking towards them, beers in hand - older, early-thirties, maybe - and the woman has her arms open and out as she and Niall close the space between them.

"Oh my God!" she says. "I thought you were back in Santa Monica for the summer."

"I am," he answers, immediately walking into an equally warm, familiar hug with the man next.

The man thumps him on the back. "What're you doing here?"

"Weekend trip," Niall says. He turns to aim a smile at Zayn, reaches out to bring him a bit closer. "Hey, this is Rochelle and Marvin, Marv used to help with studio stuff for Your Best Bet."

"Oh," Rochelle points to Zayn, looks to Niall for confirmation. "Is this - ?"

Niall grins, wide and infectious. He has a hand on Zayn's back, nudging him forward just slightly. "Yeah, this is my - um. Zayn."

Rochelle feigns a gasp and holds out a hand to shake Zayn's. "Well," she says, and glances at Marvin. "This feels a little special - Niall's never introduced us to an _um_ before, has he, babe?"

"Don't," Niall says with a wince and a self deprecating laugh. Rochelle smiling, warm and teasing, and tugs Zayn in for a hug. 

"Nice to meet you, Zayn," she murmurs, low over the din of the crowd, and he catches himself smiling before he realizes.

"You, too."

"Niall told us about you," Marvin says, tipping his beer Zayn's way like a salute. "Nice to see he didn't exaggerate about your face."

Niall buries his face against Zayn's shoulder, moaning, embarrassed. Zayn asks, "Niall talks about me?"

Marvin claps him on the shoulder, knocks him under the chin briefly and smiles. "Yeah, you're his _um_ , of course he talked about you. Told us you were very artistic, incredibly selfless with your family," he ticks them off on his fingers with a barely-concealed laugh, "and - what was the last one, man? 'Like the Sistine Chapel, but face-wise'?"

"I hate you," Niall mumbles, face mashed against Zayn's shoulder. "So much. I'm never telling you anything ever again."

His hand curls into a fist at Zayn's back, knuckles brushing back and forth over his shoulder blades now, and his cheek is flushed red, from what Zayn can see of it.

"Are you...?" Rochelle trails off, and winces comically, starts to push Marvin back the way they'd come with a hand to his chest. "They're on a date, we should -"

"No," Zayn interrupts, takes a step forward. Rochelle stops walking them backward. "Stay? I want - I mean. If you want. We can," his gaze drifts, and he gestures to the pool tables nearest them. "Play a couple games? Drink?"

He looks to Niall, who nods encouragingly. "Yeah, sounds fun."

"I'm down," Marvin says. He lifts his beer again, like a toast. 

"First rounds on us."

* * *

Niall and Rochelle have been off to the side for the last few drink rounds (and three separate games of pool), heads bowed together while Niall shows her, presumably, photos on his phone. Marvin's watching them, leaning on his pool stick, smiling fondly as Zayn lines up a shot.

The striped ball grazes the corner pocket he was aiming for, but _just_ misses. He clicks his tongue, picks up his beer and lets Marvin step around him. 

Zayn asks, "How long have you been together?" and Marvin sinks a shot with an even wider smile.

"Total? Eight years. But we've been married for seven. Got us a five-year-old, too." He lines up another shot, sinks that one, too, and the one after. "How about you and Niall?"

Zayn starts, choking on his beer, and swipes a fist across his chin. "Uh, we aren't - I'm -"

Marvin hunches over, elbows on the pool table, waiting, and Zayn finishes weakly, "Like a month."

He nods, glances over at his wife and his friend once more. "Never really seen him like this, to be honest."

"Like what?"

Straightening up, Marvin lifts a shoulder, and downs the rest of his beer. "Careful," he answers. He nods to Zayn nearly empty beer. "Want another?"

"Um," he grabs the bottle, peers down at it. He's buzzed, definitely, but he'd rather spend the rest of the night more focused than not. "No, I'm good. Thanks, though."

"Hey, Zayn?" Rochelle's walking up to him now, holding Niall's phone in her hand with Niall a few steps behind her. "So, Niall says you have more plans tonight, and Marv and I have to get a cab soon anyway - only have the babysitter until eleven - but I wanted to ask you something, before you go."

"Yeah, what?"

She comes up to his side, hands sliding up to rest on his shoulder, and holds Niall's phone in front of them. On its screen is one of his pieces - the one by the auto body shop, in the alley where Niall tried to kiss him. "You used mixed media for this, right?"

"Uh," he gives her a smile, pleased. "Yeah, I did. Spray paint mainly, obviously, but I, um. Saved up and got, like. Acrylic paint. Used pastels to sorta make it -"

"Jump off the wall, yeah," Rochelle finishes, tapping Niall's screen before it can go blank. "Emphasize the accent lines. There's broken glass in here, too, isn't there?"

"Yeah - sorry," Zayn laughs, bemused, "but, how do you know - ?"

"Oh, Roche is right up your alley, man," Marvin says. "Literally."

It takes a second, and then he realized: "You do street art?"

"Used to. When I was your age. Still very much involved in the art world, though. Think it'd be impossible for me not to be, y'know?"

"Yeah, I do," he says. He glances at Niall, who bounces up on his toes, looking so excited he could burst, clearly waiting for something Zayn hasn't quite gotten yet.

"I have another question for you," Rochelle says. "Do you have any pieces I can see that are... um..." she gestures with her hands, unable to find the words she's looking for.

"Less illegal?" Zayn guesses wryly. 

Rochelle makes the same face only more pronounced, and laughs. "Yes, exactly."

"Yeah, I have - I keep sketchbooks and stuff." He pauses. "I have copies of the portfolios I sent out to schools last year, too?"

"Perfect!" she says, and darts towards their seats, quick, to open her bag up and dig through it. She takes out a cigarette holder with business cards in it, comes back over to hand one to Zayn. 

"Can you call me? E-mail me, text me, send messages via Morse code, whatever - Niall just told me you're not attending college at the moment, and I'd really like to talk to you about possibly applying to my school for the Spring semester."

"Where," Zayn clutches the business card in his fist like a lifeline, "where do you teach?"

"Oh, I'm not teaching," she says. "But I, um, I actually work for The Office of Student Affairs. At Institute of the Arts?"

"California Institute of the Arts," Zayn says, faint. "You - you work at CalArts?"

"I do," she nods. "And I really think we could do great things with someone like you there." She smiles, small, seems to understand Zayn's dumbstruck silence for what it is and takes a breath in. "Right! Soo. That was all I wanted to say! I need to call a cab now, and you've got a _very_ lovely weekend alone to get back to."

She hugs him tight, before he has a chance to reply; Marvin shakes his hand and pulls him in for a back pat. "Nice meeting you, Zayn. And you better visit us more," he says to Niall, when he gathers him up for a hug with an arm slung across his shoulders and a kiss to the top of his head. "I miss my son."

Niall laughs. "Will do, dad."

Zayn lifts a hand. Rochelle turns her attention back to him, grips his bicep briefly in goodbye while she holds her phone up to her ear with her free hand. "Please call."

"I'll try," he manages, and glances back over his shoulder as they leave, just once. He whirls around at Niall's soft laughter once they hit the sidewalk, gestures with the fist the business card is in. 

"Did you do this?"

"I didn't even know they'd be here," Niall says. He's so happy, and he grabs hold of Zayn's wrist, pulling in the direction of the car until Zayn starts walking in step with him. "I swear. C'mon," he says, beaming. "This calls for celebration."

"Where to?"

Niall doesn't respond until they're at the Navigator; he leans over the top of it, keys dangling off one finger. "How do you feel about dancing?"

"I don't dance," Zayn admits. "It makes me look like a dork."

"How do you feel about drinking just enough for you to not care if you dance like a dork?" Niall tries again.

Zayn rolls his eyes, shakes his head.

"Yeah, alright," he says. "But you can't make fun of me."

"No promises," Niall says, unlocking the doors. Zayn sticks out his tongue, and climbs into the passenger side. "Let's stop by the hotel first, maybe change? Harry told me there's this great place right near us."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning you can dance with me," Niall says with a smile as the engine turns over. "If you want."

* * *

Zayn swaps out the dark denim jeans for a pair of black skinnies, the shirt for a thin, long sleeve black button up that he rolls to the elbows; he ducks into the bathroom to put a little more product while Niall changes in the room, and when he comes back in, Niall straightens up and blinks.

"Umm."

He tugs at the hem of his white tee absentmindedly, a dark grey jacket held limply in his free hand. Zayn says, "What?"

"Nothing." Niall eyes track down and up his body appreciatively. "You just look like you're gonna kick my ass and then maybe model a little bit after and it's really attractive."

Zayn just smiles, and tucks his wallet in his back pocket. 

"Let's go."

* * *

Niall's getting more drinks by the bar when a girl walks up to Zayn, where he's sitting near one of the high tables in an attempt to cool down.

"Hi!"

He smiles, brief, and nods hello. 

"Jessica," she says, loud over the music.

"Zayn - um. Sorry, I don't know if you're like," he sits up, jerks his chin towards the bar. "I'm here with someone?"

Jessica laughs, surprised, a hand over her mouth. "Oh, shit. No, I'm not interested, trust me." She rests an elbow on the table and stage-whispers: "My girlfriend's getting us drinks. Amira," she points towards the end of the bar top; Zayn can't really see who she's talking about, there's way too many people, but he nods, anyway.

"Right, sorry!"

"We're here with some of our other friends," she gestures behind Zayn. When he looks, he sees two more people, one with a shock of pink hair. They wave cheerfully. "You seemed a little lost, we were going to ask you to sit with us."

His smile comes more freely, this time. "Not alone, really," he says, speaking up into her ear. "Just... new."

"Figured it was your first time in one of these places," she says. And then, mindful, "Are you out?"

“No.” He shakes his head. “I, uh. No.”

"Yeah," Jessica says, hand curled over his shoulder, head ducked down so he can hear, knowing and rueful. "Kinda sucks, doesn't it?"

In his periphery, he sees Niall's coming their way now, two shot glasses in hand, a little harried. He eyes Jessica curiously as he sets the shots down, takes a long inhale and wipes sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

"Hi?" he says, over the sound of the music, the word lilting up at the end.

"Jessica," Zayn relays, leaning forward. "She was keeping me company. Her girlfriend's getting drinks."

"Girlfriend," Niall repeats, managing a smile. "Right."

Jessica waggles her fingers at Niall, starts to walk back to her table before she pauses to duck down again to whisper in his ear, "Older guy? Impressive."

Zayn laughs, glances back at her once more before sliding off the stool. Niall's gripping the tabletop tightly, swallowing repeatedly as he looks down at his shot. "You alright?"

Niall shuts his eyes, takes another deep breath, and then opens them with a wavering smile. "Lots of people."

Zayn aims a thumb over his shoulder towards the entrance, half-turned to already start heading out. "We can go - ?"

"No, no, I'll be fine, I just need, um," his hand is shaking when he reaches for his shot; he downs it, slams it down and nods. "That might help.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he cups Zayn’s chin, “c’mon, you said you’d dance with me.”

“Dorky, remember?” Zayn reminds him, tossing his own shot back, but Niall just smiles. 

“Don’t care,” he says. “Dance anyway.”

* * *

The music is pounding, thumping loud enough that Zayn feels like his entire body is vibrating; he laughs when he feels Niall press up flush against his back, and he turns, slings his arms around Niall’s shoulders as the music shifts to something slower, pulsating.

Niall’s hand splays at the small of his back, under his shirt, blunt nails digging in. Zayn breathes out heavily, lets his head fall to the crook of Niall’s neck and shuts his eyes. His skin is prickling with sweat again, already, and he tucks a hand into one of Niall’s back pockets, dips his hip in time with the beat.

“Liar,” Niall laughs. He’s breathing a touch too erratic, chest pushing against Zayn’s with each inhale. “What the fuck _isn’t_ dorky dancing to you, oh my God.”

Zayn bares a smile at the line of Niall’s throat. Niall’s half-hard, he can feel it; Zayn grinds closer, and Niall gives a full body shudder and pushes gently at Zayn’s stomach with a kiss brushed to his temple, clamps a hand on Zayn’s wrist.

When Zayn looks at him, he’s pallid, a sheen of sweat on his forehead that has nothing to do with dancing and everything to do with the sea of bodies surrounding them. “Outside, sorry, I can’t -”

He wheezes, and Zayn curses, grabs him by the wrist and shoves through the crowd as fast as possible, leaving a trail of disgruntled club goers in their wake. They hit the front exit, and fresh air, don't stop until they round the corner of the building. Niall rips off his jacket as he goes and lets it fall to the ground before resting against the brick wall, chest heaving. 

"Sorry," he says again, hands on his knees, head bowed. He laughs, and it comes out gasping. "Jesus - Christ, sorry."

"You really can't deal with crowds," Zayn says, picking the jacket up. He puts enough space between them so that he's balanced on the edge of the curb. 

Niall shakes his head. "Nope. You remember - at that party."

"I remember smoking." Zayn lets himself tip back on the toes of his boots, wobbling back and forth on the curb, hands in his pockets. "And then you cornering me and calling me beautiful."

Niall has a hand pressing in at the center of his chest and he smiles, chinned tipped up so he can rest his head against the brick, too. “That was - that was - before I, uh."

He pauses until he’s a little less frenzied, takes a deep, punctuated breath every few words: "I mean, you have...no idea what it was like seeing you again. Realizing that this... _really_ hot guy saying your name outside of a cheap diner... is _actually_ your - your kid step-brother's best friend who used to remind you of a hedgehog."

"Hey," Zayn laughs.

"A cute - hedgehog," Niall placates with another sharp breath in. "Like, a cute, non-sexual hedgehog."

"Dig your hole deeper," Zayn teases. "I dare you."

"Are you just," he takes a massive breath then, digs his fingers into his eyes as he laughs. "Are you trying to distract me from having a panic attack?"

"Only if it's working," Zayn promises.

Niall laughs again, and his hands are trembling, but his voice, when he speaks, is steadier: "Might be."

Zayn waits in silence, keeping his distance; patrons of the club pass by them every once in awhile but pay them no mind, and Zayn watches as the rise and fall of Niall's chest returns to normal. When he finally opens his eyes, more than ten minutes have passed; his cheeks are flush, and he says, breathless, "Sorry."

"Seriously?” Zayn scoffs. “Stop apologizing for that.”

There's another beat, and he cocks his head. "Can I come closer now?"

Niall nods. “Yeah, I think so.”

"If I do something, will you have another anxiety attack?"

"Are you gonna like, bury me alive or something?" Niall asks tiredly, eyes falling shut again even as Zayn stops just short of him, snorting.

"No."

"Then probably not," Niall surmises. "What is it?"

"I -" 

Voices ring out and from around the corner, two people appear, holding hands. The one with a half-shaved side of hair says _excuse me_ as they pass between Niall and Zayn, gives Zayn a brief smile and a nod. 

He nods back, watches as they glance over their shoulder at Niall when they get a bit away and Zayn wants to smile and say _Yeah, he's with me_ without feeling as though he's just climbed some insurmountable mountain of bravery, wants to hold someone's hand without it being a form of protest or a grand gesture or a _fuck you_ and like.

It can feel like those things. It can feel like all of those things. Like love and defiance all at once, but one day, he thinks - he _hopes_ \- it'll feel like it's _normal_. Like he's not on display.

And maybe it won't be easy and maybe it won't be quick but -

Well. He can work towards it.

"Zayn?"

He looks back at Niall, whose eyes are open now. He's leaning with his back to the wall, one brow arched in curiosity. "What are you gonna do?"

Zayn takes a shuffling step forward, hesitates for just a moment to glance down both lengths of the sidewalk to find it empty. He cups Niall's cheeks then, and kisses him, and they're not in a room, or a car, or a private balcony - there are no walls here, just fresh air in their lungs and the ground holding them in place - and Niall smiles against his mouth, reaches up to grab his elbow.

"Oh," he says when they part, soft and sweetly lulling. 

Zayn laughs, ducks his head to the crook of Niall's neck. An arm winds around his waist, hand smoothing up the length of his back, the other reaching for one of Zayn's hand to hold onto it loosely, dropped between them. He says, "Um. Yeah."

"Can I," Niall noses along his temple, murmurs over the bass thumping inside the club, "can I say I'm proud of you, or would that ruin the moment?"

"First public kiss," Zayn says, right as a gaggle of people round the corner once more; they pass right by, and Zayn makes no move to shift away. "Think it deserves some recognition."

Niall's fingers dig in, and he laughs too, quietly. 

"Let's go back to the hotel then," he says.

* * *

Niall backs him up against the wall of the hotel elevator when they get there, hands on the waist high bars; he nips Zayn’s neck, kisses the spot after, and the doors ding open. They stumble out of the elevator, make their way down the hall to the room and once they’re in, Niall’s back hits the door. 

He laughs, unfurls his hands under Zayn’s jaw to kiss him, making it count. They undress slow, and by the time Niall has him spread out on the hotel bed, Zayn knows it’s different. The build up. Niall’s hand keep drifting lower, moving deliberately, and Zayn arches into it, rolls them onto their sides. He makes a soft, indistinct sound and sighs, _Will you fuck me_ , and then stills, and blinks his eyes open when Niall stops kissing him. 

He doesn’t look surprised, exactly, but he watches Zayn, asks tentatively, “You’re sure?” and Zayn nods, leans in to kiss Niall, maybe a little too hard and a little too trembling, but. 

He’s sure. 

More than anything, he’s sure.

* * *

"Right," Niall says, scooting down the hotel bed and onto his knees the same time Zayn adjuts until his legs are spread loose at Niall's hips. "So just - tell me to go as slow as you need, don't worry about what it's doing for me, alright? I'm, uh," he dances from side to side, and laughs, drops his hands to the mattress on either side of Zayn's head. "I am not what's important right now."

"Debatable," Zayn says, and Niall starts in again, rambling and nervous:

"It's easier if you're relaxed, so if the position doesn't feel all that comfortable, you can change your mind and we'll figure something out. On your knees is _probably_ best but -"

"Niall."

"Mm?"

Zayn looks up at him, wants to smile but can't quite manage it. "Shut up."

He gets a laugh for that; Niall lowers himself onto an elbow to duck his head for a kiss. "I'm serious, though," he says earnestly, free hand trailing down Zayn's chest, skimming over his hip, holding tight to the back his thigh, briefly, proprietary.

It's this new kind of feeling, makes Zayn bite his lip, makes his breath catch. Zayn's been fucking him for weeks now, and it's great, it's amazing, and he's had Niall's dick in his mouth, in his hand, Niall's fingers _everywhere_ , but he's pretty sure - he's pretty sure Niall likes it best like this. And that's he's been waiting for Zayn to tell him he's ready.

It has to mean something, Zayn thinks cautiously, as Niall's knees slide up the bed - first one then the other - to push against Zayn's thighs, spread them wider. He plants a forearm next to Zayn's head, and his other hand dips between them, brushing along Zayn's happy trail, stroking him a few, lazy times.

Zayn forgets Niall even had a point until he adds in the sudden stillness, "Sometimes it just doesn't work. That's okay."

"I want it to work," Zayn tells him. Then, with an anxious laugh, "Porn just, uhhhm," he trails off, swallowing hard, and, right, there's Niall's fingers again, a bit cold and a bit wet, pushing in, gently testing where they've already been a few minutes before, "made it seem a lot easier."

Niall laughs, too. He cranes his neck down to kiss Zayn, only once, before sitting back. "Porn makes _everything_ seem a lot easier," he says, lining himself up. He reminds, "Slow as you need."

"You keep talking like you're gonna break me -" Zayn starts, teasing, and then inhales sharp at the sudden pressure, holds it in. He fists the bedspread, mouth dropped open, and watches the way Niall watches him.

"Yeah," Niall replies, without any of his usual lightness, even though his mouth quirks up at the ends briefly. He pushes, and Zayn can't bear to look anymore; just lets his eyes fall shut and grits his teeth. "That's what I'm worried about."

* * *

There's this moment, in between all the others: Zayn has his arm hooked around Niall's shoulders, a hand buried in his hair from where Niall's face is hidden, temple resting against Zayn's. His thighs are locked at Niall's sides as soft, overwhelmed sounds leave him with every snap of Niall's hips, and he thinks _I'm being fucked_ , and then, _I'm being fucked by a guy_ -

And he says, "Oh my God - this is - _really gay_ ," and Niall jerks in surprise, letting out a strangled snort.

Mortified, Zayn's grip on Niall's hair slackens in the silence for all of two seconds, which is when Niall's snort builds into full-on _laughter_ , bright and out of breath. He forces an arm low under Zayn’s back, carefully lifts him up and sits back on his calves, legs spread, so Zayn’s in his lap instead. 

Zayn sinks back down, fingers digging into Niall’s bicep, a high, breathy sound getting caught in his throat. He grins, with a hand over his eyes, an elbow on Niall's shoulder, and he's shaking with it, feels _mad_ with it - with this deliriously happy, brief snatch of time - and he can't help the next moan that leaves him when Niall rolls his hips. Not even when he says, voice tight, and an edge of amusement to his words, "Nothing gets past you, huh, Z."

Zayn laughs, and gasps out a _Shut up_ that sounds more affectionate than anything else; he laughs, and lets himself go.

* * *

Once they’ve cleaned up - half-assed, lazily, too tired to shower just yet - and settled back in, half the sheets kicked off the bed, the pads of Niall's fingers start to draw nonsensical patterns at the small of his back. "How do you feel?" he asks, quietly searching, and Zayn sighs and nuzzles into his pillow.

He gives himself a moment to evaluate the aches and pains when he shifts around, foot kicking out and catching Niall softly at the ankle. Eventually, he settles on, "Okay," and then amends: "Great. Perfect."

"Stop," Niall laughs, pushes his shoulder and then scoots in close anyway, shoves his head in the space between Zayn's neck and the pillow beneath his head. He kicks gently at Zayn's ankles in return. " _Perfect_."

"I do," Zayn insists. "I'm glad," a smile twitches across his mouth when Niall's hand drifts idly down his back again. "I'm glad it was with you."

Niall makes a snuffly, happy, sleepy sound, partly amused and a whole lot fond. "Good," is all he says, muffled, and Zayn rolls them over so he can rest his head on Niall's chest. 

"So what was your first time with a guy like?"

Niall inhales, and lets out a short laugh. "Um. Not perfect." He's combing a distracted hand through Zayn's hair, sounds mostly like he's speaking towards the ceiling when he explains: "I was... fifteen and started messing around with one of my friends and one day we just decided to go for it, only neither of us had any fucking clue what we were doing."

"Porn made it seem easier?" Zayn asks dryly, and Niall hums in amusement.

"Porn made it seem easier, yeah."

"What, uh," Zayn rubs his nose back and forth against Niall's pec, clears his throat. "Did you - um. What was your first time with a girl like?"

Niall laughs, chest shaking under Zayn's cheek. "I've never had sex with a girl."

"Have you ever liked one?"

"I don't think so," Niall answers. His index finger draws a circle onto Zayn's hip, and then a heart. "Nah, girls were never a big draw for me."

"So... you always knew?"

"Knew what?"

"That," Zayn tip-taps his fingers on Niall's chest. "That you were gay."

Niall's palm comes down flat over Zayn's hip; he pats it, pushes himself up with his free hand and Zayn follows, sits cross legged at Niall's side with the bedsheet bunched in his lap. "I guess?" Niall says, and he's looking right at Zayn. "I don't know. I never really thought of it as anything concrete until I was old enough to realize that, despite what I'd been told, straight wasn't necessarily my default setting. Or anyone else's, for that matter."

"But you were fine with it," Zayn presses, smiling weakly down into his lap and stumbling over his words, "like, when was the first time you saw a guy and - and knew you wanted to kiss him. Or just. Knew that there was - there was something _there_ that was different, for, for you?"

"Um," Niall wraps a hand around one of Zayn's ankles. "I think maybe I was like, eight? Or nine? I'd just linger on boys longer and girls didn't really seem interesting so I figured they weren't for me - what do you mean 'fine with it' though?" he asks, squeezing Zayn's ankle.

Zayn lifts a shoulder, feels a halfhearted smile work its way into the corner of his mouth. "Like you've never felt like you wanted to _not_ be - queer. Like - like, um," he swallows down a ridiculous lump in his throat, "there was something wrong with you."

It's quiet for so long that Zayn's afraid to look up, but when he does, he's taken aback by the dead set sincerity in Niall's expression.

"Zayn, there's nothing wrong with you," he says, so soft, and Zayn pinches his bottom lip to hide the way it trembles when he replies with, "No, I know -"

"No, Zayn -" Niall exhales, frustrated with something beyond Zayn, beyond this room, and the walls of this hotel. "Listen - fuck, I don't know how to -" he's talking to himself, cuts his sentence off short once more before he palms Zayn's jaw, tilts his head up so he has to look Niall in the eye.

"There is nothing wrong with you," he repeats. "I'm sorry it hasn't been easy, figuring things out but - but you know who you are. You know what you are. No one else can define that for you, and if they want you to change, or if they think they get to decide for you, then they don't deserve to be around you, anyway."

"It's not, it's not even," Zayn hesitates, just long enough that Niall leans forward to kiss him. "It's not even other people, not anymore, or not always," he says when they break apart, "it's me, like my head just psyches me out, all the time, and I just - I'm really tired of being scared." 

He clasps his fingers around Niall's wrists. "And, you, I - you make me feel less scared," he finishes, and Niall makes this _face_ -

A little like he's breaking, a little like he's overwhelmed and doesn't know what to do. "I'm not," he starts, and can't figure out how to continue. His palms are still cupping Zayn under his jaw, a thumb skimming along the edge of it absentmindedly. He gives a shake of his head, muttering _nevermind_ as he kisses Zayn, pushes him down onto the bed.

He sighs when Zayn’s back hits the mattress, touches his forehead to Zayn's and slides Zayn’s hand up the bed, over his head, so he can tangle their fingers together.

“You know I like you, right,” he says tenderly.

Zayn hasn’t opened his eyes. His heart kickstarts in his chest, skips a clumsy beat, and he says, “Yeah.”

“Okay,” Niall whispers back. And then again, with another soft, subdued exhale: “Okay.”

* * *

Niall drops him off late on Sunday evening, right at his doorstep. Doniya’s out, but the girls are awake, sitting up against the beat up coffee table in the living room, both sets of eyes hypnotized byby the cartoon in front of them. Trisha is home, looking tired, though she brightens a little when she notices Niall at the door, and makes him come in. 

He attempts to beg her off, but it doesn’t work, and Zayn fidgets anxiously, and watches them talk. She asks about the weekend - _Didn’t know you’d gone with Zayn and his friends_ \- and Niall glances at him and replies easily, “No, yeah, it was a spur of the moment thing. Zayn convinced me to go.”

A pause, and he adds, “Actually, sorry, Trisha, do you mind if we catch up some other time? I have something in my car I needed to show Zayn, and then I really have to get home after.”

“Oh, no problem,” she waves him away with one last hug. “It was so nice to see you!”

“You, too. Tell your husband I said hi, will you?”

“He’s knocked out, poor thing. Had the whole day off because he's starting early morning tomorrow." She looks down the hall, towards their room, shaking her head. "It's hell, but better than nights. Working nights is killing him."

Niall gives her a sympathetic smile. To Zayn, he says, "I'll be right back."

"I'll be in my room," Zayn says, to Niall and his mom both, and he closes the door when he gets there, thumps his head against it with a curse.

He can hear his mom puttering around in the kitchen, and then her voice, sternly telling the girls not to sit so close to the television. She knocks on his door a moment later, to say she's going to shower, and can he keep his door open to keep an eye on his sisters, before her steps recede again.

There's another knock at his door, and he opens it, this time, lets Niall in and pushes the door shut just enough; Safaa laughs in the living room, and the bathtub knobs turn creakily as the shower starts.

"Here," Niall hands him an oversized envelope with no preamble, and Zayn takes it when he sees the CalArts logo on the front. "I printed it out on Wednesday, way before we saw Rochelle in the Castro. I was going to give it to you this weekend anyway. You should fill it out."

Zayn holds it in his hands, eyes on the _For Zayn_ scrawled across the top in pen. "I'm not doing this again, Niall."

"You're good enough to get in a second time around," Niall insists. "Especially if Rochelle's in your corner."

"Rochelle can't give me a guaranteed full ride," he says, but Niall shakes his head minutely, curls a finger through Zayn's belt loop to tug him in. 

"You're amazing. She knows that. She'll figure it out."

"Niall, I can't do it if the money isn't there," Zayn says thickly, and the words _working nights is killing him_ ring loud in his head. "I can't reapply and decide it's not possible again. It'll fucking break me."

"You're going," Niall says, and it's with this finality that almost has Zayn believing him. "You'll get in, and you'll get out, and you'll do great things, and I _promise_ your family will never be anything less than proud of you for it."

His hand falls heavy on Zayn's neck as he speaks, quickly and quietly, but Zayn shakes his head, eyes shut tight. "I don't even know how I'd make it there, where I'd _live_ , how I'd get around -"

"You can stay with me," Niall interrupts, and the package is getting crushed between them, with Zayn arms crossed, hugged to his chest. "I was thinking about it and I can get a place, easy - stay with me," he repeats, "it'll work out," and before Zayn has a chance to respond, Niall's kissing him.

Soft, at first, with hands cradling his face. And then deeper, and with a ragged breath in when Zayn makes a noise in his throat. _The shower is running_ , he tells himself. It's running, and his dad is asleep, and he walks them forward until Niall's back hits the wall next to the doorframe, taking staggering steps over the mess on the floor. 

Niall's breath gets shoved out of him, and he laughs, and Zayn presses a kiss to his mouth with a smile. 

"Zayn, Waliyha says I'm too little to hold the remote, it's not _fair_ \- !"

Safaa's voice comes in from the hallway, far too close, and Zayn jerks away from Niall, takes a stumbling step back to find Safaa staring up at them from the widened crack in the door, head tilted.

"What were you doin'?" she asks curiously, and Zayn bends down, snatches the CalArts form off the floor - he'd dropped it, doesn't know when - and when he looks, Niall's staring up at the ceiling, hand over his mouth and his other at his waist.

"Nothing," Zayn says, and it's a miracle that he can even form words at this point - there's a feeling of hysteria spreading through him like wildfire, and his chest picks up when he tries to laugh, "Saf, uh, wait - wait right there in the hall and I'll get the remote for you. I'll be two seconds."

"But _Waliyha_ said -"

"Two se - two seconds," Zayn says, and his voice breaks, and he will not lose it in front of his little sister, he _won't_.

She rolls her eyes, her tiny fists set at her hips, but does what she's told anyway, and the moment she's out of view again, Zayn buckles, hands on his knees, gasping, "Oh my God -"

"It's okay," Niall takes a step, but Zayn straightens up, flinching away. 

He scrubs at his hair, pulls too hard at the ends, lets his head backward. "That's it, right," he says, voice hoarse. "That's - that's it. She's going to tell my mom, she'll tell my mom because she's five and doesn't know any better, and my mom'll tell my dad, and they'll tell everyone else and by the end of the week the asshole shitheads down by beach will be calling me a mutt _and_ a faggot -"

" _Zayn_ \- "

Zayn sniffs, combs a hand through his hair again; his expression breaks. "Why did I let you in here?"

"I - fuck - hold on," Niall tells him, and then calls out, "Safaa?"

Zayn's gaze snaps to him. "What the fuck are you doing?"

Niall waves a hand, waves him away; Safaa comes into view, pushing the door open, takes one look at Zayn and frowns. "What happened?"

"Hey, Munchkin," Niall crouches down in front of her, hands folding over her shoulders. He smiles, sweet, even if Zayn can tell it doesn't quite reach his eyes. His speaking softly, so Waliyha doesn't overhear, and slowly. "So you know what you just saw, with me and your brother?"

She narrows her eyes, gives a suspicious, "Yeah...?"

"Well, it's like," Niall's eyes flick to him, and back to Safaa. "It's like a secret between us. Okay?"

"Secret kissing?" she asks, and Zayn's laugh in response is tired and hollow. 

Niall nods. "And the thing is," he says in a deliberately hushed voice, like she'll never hear anything more important, "you're special, because _no one else knows_ except _you_. Not even your sisters, or your parents. And you can keep a secret right?"

" _Yes_ ," she says with a single, emphatic nod, and Niall's smile gets bigger and he tucks a lock of hair behind her ear.

"Of course you can, Sweetie," he says. "Go back to the living room. Don't fight, and I promise next time I see you I'll give you both... hmm," he screws his face up, pretending to think. "A big cake!"

"Noo," she laughs, disbelieving, but he nods.

"No, really! Bigger than your head. Both your heads!" He nudges her gently, reaching up to open the door more. "Go on."

He shuts the door when she leaves, and immediately rushes forward to hug Zayn. "I'm sorry," he says, and Zayn sags into him, fists the sleeve of his jacket. "Zayn -"

Zayn takes a broken breath in, buries his face in the crook of Niall's neck. "Will that work?" he asks, and he can feel tears sliding over the bridge of his nose.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's okay," Niall says, he cradles the back of Zayn's head, arm tight around his middle, tsks when Zayn's next inhale is shuddering. "Just relax. Breathe."

He backs away, just a bit, when the shower stops running down the hall, and cups Zayn's face once more. "If you feel like you can't stay here, or like you don't have any space, or privacy, or if you just don't feel comfortable, you can come over anytime, alright? Anytime. You can take the bus, or call me, or Harry, and we'll get you. Got it?"

Zayn nods, mouth pressed in a thin line, chin trembling. He swallows hard, and he takes a few tries, but he gets out: "You have to leave."

"I know." He hauls Zayn in, kisses the top of his head. "Anytime," he says. "I mean it."

"Okay."

"Call me tomorrow?" he says, and he's over the threshold now. "Or tonight. Whenever."

Zayn takes yet another shaking inhale in, and wipes his eyes with the heels of his palms. "I will."

Niall gives him one last, pained look and heads out, hand on the knob to shut the door.

"Wait -"

He ducks back in, brows furrowed.

"Leave it open," Zayn says. He sits on his bed heavily. He wants to go to sleep for a million years. He wants to go to sleep and wake up somewhere else. "Still have to watch my sisters."

"Right," Niall says softly. He's gone in the next moment. 

Zayn pulls his legs up to his chest, and waits, ears straining every time Safaa's voice filters into his room until she gets tucked into bed.

She doesn't say a thing.

* * *

His dad shakes him awake, gentle, just before he leaves for work the next morning. He says _I'll see you later. Maybe you can show me some new drawings_ , and _Mom says love you, she's even harder to wake up than you are sometimes haha_ , and he reminds Zayn that _Insha'Allah_ , it's going to be a good day.

Zayn leans into the touch, mumbles a sleepy response back, but he's just alert enough to think if his parents still love him, then maybe Safaa really can keep a secret; the door clicks shut, the morning light has only just begun to stream through the window, and he breathes a little easier, for just a while longer.


	5. so come on now, open wide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s evening, a little after five, and the balcony doors are wide open so a breeze can blow in every few moments. Niall's hand keeps drawing the same pattern over Zayn’s shoulder as they doze, again and again, soothing, and Zayn can’t think of a single place he feels more like himself than this bed, so he lets his eyes fall shut, cranes his neck so he can aim a clumsy kiss to Niall’s chin.
> 
> Like second nature, Niall leans down and steals a real one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this has been a RIDE. I just wanted to say thanks for the amazing comments and messages some of you have sent in the span of writing this - this wasn't the easiest thing in the world to write because it came from somewhere very, very personal, but I think it's so fucking nice to know that none of us are truly alone with stuff like this. Hope this last part doesn't disappoint, it threw me for a loop for a while lol. Massive thanks, again, to Lindsay, who is probably the only reason I even posted this/finished it mostly because I'm pretty sure she would've followed through on her threats if I hadn't. 
> 
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> If you've noticed, the chapter titles have been song lyrics. You can look them up, if you'd like, but for this last part - and, I guess, most of the fic in general, I've been listening to the three listed below. I CANNOT RECOMMEND ENOUGH that you at least listen to **[Patrick Wolf's "Overture"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i-KqFCKa_c)** on repeat forever for this because haha, wow, ouch.
> 
>   
> **001.** "Infinity Street" - Richard Walters **002.** "Overture" - Patrick Wolf  
>  **003.** "We Are Fine" - Sharon Van Etten  
> 

* * *

“Spring application deadline is November third,” Niall reads off his phone screen. He rolls onto his back on his bed, tugs his shirt down from where its ridden up and scrolls up the screen with his index finger. “This says you have to submit ‘twenty images representative of your most recent work.’ Doesn’t say there’s any kind of restriction on what you can submit.” He lifts his head awkwardly off his pillow. “You think you can take pictures of your street stuff?”

Zayn shifts, sits cross-legged and pulls Niall’s laptop onto his thighs. “Who knows. I mean, I did, anyway - like, five, I think, that were still up? But, y’know.” He looks up, catches Niall’s eye and grins. “No distinguishing street signs or anything. Cropped so it’s just the walls.”

“Pretty _and_ smart,” Niall notes, to Zayn’s soft laughter. “What’re you doing now?”

“Artist statement.” Zayn pulls a face. “No fucking clue what I’m supposed to say.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Niall tells him, and then gives his phone one last glance before tossing it aside with a frustrated, exaggerated grumble, muffled into the pillow. Zayn shoves the laptop out of the way, towards the edge of the bed, crawls forward until he can slump down next to Niall. 

“You have to go?” he asks, even though he already knows, and Niall nods without lifting his head. He scoots in closer, a hand on Zayn’s waist, bunching up the fabric of his top. 

“Gonna start recording soon,” he mumbles, and his hand slips under Zayn’s shirt, then down, until the pads of his fingers are sliding past the top of Zayn’s jeans. “Feel like I’m gonna puke every time I think about it.” 

“You’re cute when you’re nervous,” Zayn whispers, and Niall pinches him, but his mouth - the corner Zayn can see, the corner not blocked by the pillow - lilts up. He cracks open an eye to peek at Zayn, then flops onto his back again, arm held out so Zayn can cuddle in, head on Niall’s chest. 

Neither of them speaks. It’s evening, a little after five, and the balcony doors are wide open so a breeze can blow in every few moments, the curtains billowing in the warm, summer wind. His hand keeps drawing the same pattern over Zayn’s shoulder as they doze, again and again, soothing, and Zayn can’t think of a single place he feels more like himself than this bed, so he lets his eyes fall shut, cranes his neck so he can aim a clumsy kiss to Niall’s chin. 

Like second nature, Niall leans down and steals a real one. Zayn mumbles _Hey_ and, when Niall breaks the kiss to look at him, “Do you really think I’ll get in?”

“I really do,” Niall replies. He watches Zayn for a moment, and then his bottom lip pokes out comically and he thumps his head down again. “I don’t want to go a meeting, I want to sleep with you.”

Zayn laughs. “Well.”

“ _Sleep_ ,” Niall emphasizes. “Like a nap, you pervert.”

“I mean,” Zayn starts to wriggle down, yanks on the front of Niall’s jeans until the top button comes undone. “That’s boring. There are other options.”

“I’ve created a monster,” Niall laments. 

He brushes a gentle hand through Zayn’s hair as he says this, twirls a section of it around a finger and tugs. Zayn buries his face against Niall’s stomach and smiles.

* * *

On a Wednesday, Zayn submits his application to CalArts, and starts a new piece. 

The building this time is an old taquería out of business for a year, now, with a peeling, dilapidated sign hanging over the front entrance. The wall he wants - a windowless side of the restaurant, a wide expanse of cream-colored stucco - faces the street. It's something he doesn't do often, pieces out in the open, but he's scoped the place out enough times to know there's generally low foot traffic. 

For once, he has nothing planned. No sketches. No outlines or stencils or pasteups. All he has is a beat-up milk crate at his feet, stacked with half-full paint cans and sprays, the rest of his acrylics and pastels, a roller, and a dozen brushes of various shapes and sizes.

He stands in front of the wall, assessing, with a spray can in his hand and his skin prickling from the humidity in the late afternoon, the sweat gathering under his arms and down the middle of his back. When he finally starts - a graceful, arcing line across crumbling, unwashed stucco - its with a faint smile, and an ever-increasing warmth finding root within his chest.

It takes hours. By the time he's used up the last of his acrylics, it's dusk; he breaks for the day, skin grimy with dried sweat, and he chugs nearly an entire water bottle down in one go, ducks his head and dumps the rest over his hair. And he's combing back the wet fringe flopping into his eyes when he notices a kid on the sidewalk, sat on her bike with a snapback on and her feet flat on the pavement, one handlebar gripped lightly.

She can't be more than fifteen, doesn't say anything even when Zayn gives her an odd stare. He drops the empty water bottle into his milk crate, wipes his forehead with the back of his hand and stands arms akimbo, surveying his work.

"Is it finished?"

Without turning, Zayn says, "You shouldn't talk to strangers." 

Behind him, the girl clicks her tongue. "I know you."

Zayn does turn at that. "Oh, yeah? From where."

She points to the wall, to the _ZAP!_ in the corner. Zayn's tag. He smiles, and faces his piece again.

"What's your real name?"

"Ka-pow," Zayn deadpans. Then: "Zayn."

"I'm Brooklyn. Watson," she says, and before Zayn can get out a _Seriously?_ , "Yeah, Brooklyn like the borough, and I bet I've heard whatever joke you're thinking right now like a thousand times already."

Zayn snorts, and starts to gather up his supplies. "Go home, kid," he says. "It's getting late."

"I'm _fourteen_ ," Brooklyn says, petulant. "And I do that stuff, too. The - well. I just started."

"Yeah?" Zayn crouches down, tosses the rest of his brushes into the milk crate, along with the cans. "That's cool, man, keep it up."

"Thanks," she says. She adjusts her snapback, nods towards the piece again. "Got any advice?"

"Um," Zayn hefts his crate up and straightens. "If I said create what you feel, would you laugh?"

"Probably."

Zayn lets out an amused noise, and heads back to the Jeep, around the corner from the restaurant - he told his mom he'd have it back before dark, doesn't want to keep her waiting. Brooklyn pedals along next to him slowly.

"So?" she asks, when Zayn gets to the Jeep. She leans to the side on her bike, opens the passenger side for him so he can shove the crate in.

Zayn squints against the sunlight as he shuts the door. "So what?"

"Is it finished?" she asks again. 

Zayn frowns thoughtfully, down at his boots, before looking at her. "I don't know yet."

"Well - what were you _feeling_ when you were working on it then?" Brooklyn says, with a flash of a crooked, teasing grin.

Zayn pauses to think, and then laughs. "I don't know."

Brooklyn doesn't seem very impressed. "When will you know?"

He smiles back at her and shrugs, unconcerned. 

"Guess I'll figure it out when it's done."

* * *

“Say... ‘Niall’s dick is the beeest,’” Niall sing-songs, and Zayn hides a laugh in the crook of his neck as Niall’s camera phone shutters and flashes. 

“What happened to ‘cheese’?” he mumbles to Niall’s clavicle, and Niall nudges at him with his shoulder.

“Overrated - hey, c’mon, look at the camera.”

Zayn shakes his head, but he does peek up in time to catch Niall extending his arm out once more, camera shutter going off again. He hums to himself, brings the phone up and plants an elbow gently on Zayn’s back so he can sort through the photos. 

“You're so adorable,” he says, after a few quiet moments, and laughs - this soft, cut off sound, more like a sigh than anything else. “God, you’re really fucking cute.”

Zayn presses his forehead onto Niall’s chest now, hard enough to block out the light streaming in through the window. “No -”

“You are _so cute_ , in fact,” Niall talks over him loudly, tapping away on his phone, “that I am going to make _this one_ my background.”

That has Zayn pushing off his chest. “You are _not_ \- which one - don’t -”

Niall holds his phone away, hooks an arm around Zayn’s neck and hauls him in for a kiss. “Nope, too late.” He grins, pecks Zayn on the mouth again. “It’s my background forever.”

Zayn straddles him and smiles. “Which one,” he asks again, breathless, and Niall shoves the phone under one of the pillow. Zayn’s phone beeps from the bedside table next to them, and he leans over to find a new message from Niall, with an image attachment.

_Mostly naked selfie hahahaha <3_

Only half of Niall’s face is in the picture, cut off from the weird angle; he’s grinning wide, and Zayn’s tucked in close, hand curled against his mouth. “Told you,” Niall murmurs, thumb skimming back and forth over his ribs, digging in at the tattoo there. “Cute.” 

Zayn smiles dopily down at his screen for a few moments until Niall grabs him around the backs of his thighs, flips him so he’s on his back with Niall kneeling over him, straddling a thigh. “I know you can’t make it your background or anything,” he says, and leans down to nip at Zayn’s neck. “But don’t delete it, alright?”

Zayn dumps his phone onto the mountain of comforters next to them, cups Niall’s face to kiss him. “Alright,” he says, and then Niall is shuffling down the bed on his knees. He follows the ridges of Zayn’s ribs with soft pecks then mouths, hot and wet, over the cloth of Zayn's boxer briefs (tugged on hastily earlier when Harry’d suddenly shown up, as per). Zayn licks his lips, eyes fluttering shut - and Niall suddenly, deliberately, bites way too hard at the ink on his upper thigh. 

“Ow!” He jerks away, laughing, shoving at Niall. “Asshole!” 

Niall cackles, ducks back in to kiss the welt before resting his cheek on Zayn’s thigh. He idly walks his fingers along Zayn’s navel, then down onto the comforter. A moment later, he brings up his hand with a little waggle, Zayn’s phone held in his palm. “Blowjob selfie?” 

“Depends,” Zayn says, reaching for it. “Are you gonna make it your lock screen, this time?” 

Niall laughs. “If you want,” he says, and his teeth bite at the elastic of Zayn’s underwear, tugs until it snaps against his skin. His hands slide up the back to palm Zayn's ass, fingers digging into flesh. "You can even film it."

"Maybe I'll submit it to CalArts, too," Zayn muses, lifting his hips so Niall can tug off the boxer briefs. He unlocks his phone, opens up the camera and taps the red record button on the screen. "What d'you thi -" his breath catches, mid-word, when Niall makes an inquisitive sound and sucks a kiss to the head of his dick, "think?"

"I think," Niall says, stroking him now, leaning into Zayn's hand when he reaches out to tuck Niall's hair behind his ear, "you should probably stop talking."

" _Maybe_ ," Zayn replies, in the same soft, teasing tone Niall is using, "you should _make_ me."

"Yeah," Niall breathes, and Zayn arches his back a bit with a soft whimper, "Maybe."

He buries his free hand in Niall's hair, and from the stairwell outside of the room, he hears Harry says, surprised and slightly panicked, "Louis!"

Niall's head snaps up.

Zayn drops his phone, pushes himself up onto his hands, and for one infinitesimal moment, time seems to slow. Then they hear Louis' disembodied voice say, "Hey! I didn't know you'd still be here," and, "where's my step-bro, I saw his Nav in the driveway -"

The handle to the door turns - it was locked in an attempt to thwart Harry - and Niall and Zayn are stuck, frozen, listening to the conversation on the other side of it.

"Hugs!" Harry shouts. "I haven't seen you in a long, long time, Louis, let's hug. For several minutes, at least."

"You're still weird as shit, H," Louis says fondly, voice suddenly muffled, and Niall carefully climbs off the bed, wincing when the mattress creaks loudly. "Dude. I can hear him in there. What, is he like, passed out still from partying or something?"

Zayn's still sitting up, eyes wide, chest tight.

"Yeah, incredibly hungover," Harry says, voice growing a touch fainter, like he's attempting to steer them further down the hallway. "You should _not_ open his door. And let him sleep."

"You're the most conspicuous person I've met in my whole entire life, Harry -" Louis says, and then waits a beat, and laughs. "Wait. Shit, is someone in there _with him_. Niall! _Neil_ , wake the fuck up, loser, do you have a _guy_ in there -"

"Shit," Niall hisses, and Zayn stumbles off the bed, trips and nearly faceplants before Niall steadies him. He blindly grabs a pair of jeans off the floor and yanks them on, tosses the other Zayn's way. 

"Where's my underwear," Zayn hisses back, flipping back the covers haphazardly, and Niall shrugs jerkily.

"I don't know - did you know he was gonna be here today?"

"Uh, no, I probably wouldn't be naked in your fucking bed if I had," Zayn whispers, hoarse, heart ramming against his chest as he tugs the jeans on commando. He grabs the nearest top - Niall's American flag tank - and throws it on, waves his arms until Niall notices him, gestures in question about what to do.

"You _do_ , don't you!" Louis crows. "It's not that Irish guy again, is it -"

"Let's go outsiiide," Harry singsongs anxiously, and -

"No!" Niall yells back, the same time Harry adds, "Louis, I have a cool, new thing to show you that we have to not be in the house for - !"

"Neil's got mysterious _cock_ in his room, you can't fool me -"

"- Shut _up_ , Lou, there's no one in here - !" he shouts, mouthing _in the bathroom_ to Zayn, who’s sitting on the floor, tugging his boots on unlaced.

"Harry is totally covering for you, oh my God," Louis laughs, again, and then, offhanded, "Jesus, you'd make a really shitty spy, Harry."

"No, I wouldn't," Harry says petulantly as Zayn crosses the room.

"Unlock the door," Louis demands, and the handle jiggles. "I want to meet whoever's in there -"

"It's just _me_ , dumbass -"

"Let them know what a mistake they're making, hooking up with you," Louis finishes, a smile in his voice, and Zayn stills with his hand on the bathroom door, then pushes it open and hides.

Niall unlocks the door; it swings open and Harry and Louis fall in. "Floozy," Louis says immediately. "You're not even wearing a shirt. Where's your concubine?"

"Slid down the drainpipe," Niall says. Zayn peers through the crack in the door; he and Louis are hugging, Louis facing the balcony, with Harry by the bed. Harry cants his head, and looks towards the bathroom.

He lifts a hand in hello, and when Zayn mouths _phone_ and points to the bed, he casually starts to drift over until he's in front of it. Harry grabs Zayn's phone amidst the bundle of blankets, and then makes his way to the bathroom. Louis starts to turn, starts to say something to Harry, but Niall hugs him tighter, lifts him up off the floor momentarily. "Heyyy! Wow, I missed you," he says, clapping Louis on the back. "Glad you’re here."

"I know," Louis says, and he sounds happy. "Wanted to get back in time for Liam, before she leaves - wow, you are really into this hug," he adds, laughing, as Zayn slips out of the bathroom. He starts a backwards trek towards the open bedroom door as swiftly as possible. 

Niall is staring at him over Louis' shoulder.

"I'll see you later though, right?" he asks.

"Yeah, of course, bro," Louis says, and from the hallway, silent and hidden, Zayn nods.

* * *

Louis shows up when Zayn's at work, towards the end of his shift, and when all Zayn does is smile weakly, his shoulders droop. "Liam told you, didn't she?" he asks, a comical frown pulling down at the corners of his mouth, presumably at Zayn's lack of reaction. "I told her I wanted to surprise you, no fair."

"Um - no, yeah, she - sorry, she texted," Zayn says. There aren't any customers this close to closing, so Louis hops up on the counter and spins around until he's facing Zayn, legs kicking out, hands clasped together and held onto the edge.

"Are you happy to see me?" Louis asks, and it's a joke, teasing, but Zayn can see the way his smile falters, just a bit. Louis looks down. "Haven't really heard from you much this summer."

A rush of guilt runs through Zayn. He's been distracted, he knows, but the thought of talking to Louis lately, after everything that's happened with Niall, makes him more anxious than he's willing to admit.

"I'm sorry," Zayn says, and he means it. He comes in the same moment Louis slides off the counter and in the next breath, they're hugging. "It's just - summer's been... weird."

"Yeah, Liam said you guys broke up for real, you've," he snorts, "you've been AWOL dating someone apparently. Guess it's been different," Louis says, mouth mashed at Zayn's shoulder, arms around Zayn's waist. Zayn tenses, and Louis presses his face in a little harder. "I missed you, asshole."

They break apart. Zayn tries to smile. "I missed you, too."

"Right," Louis says then. "I think your whole 'practically ignoring your best friend for two months' thing means you owe me a milkshake. And a burger. And at least two orders of fries."

"Oh, at least," Zayn says, with a small, genuine laugh. 

"How long you got left on your shift?"

"About a half hour," Zayn answers. "Got something planned?"

"Maybe just drive to the beach - me, you and Li? One last hurrah before she leaves Sunday?" He brushes past Zayn as he speaks, walks around the register. "I'm staying with Niall, so maybe we can all chill there after -"

"No," Zayn says, too-quick, and when Louis' brows knit together, "I mean. Um. We should stay at Liam's instead. Think her mom wants to see her a little more before, y'know."

"Yeah, I get it." Louis pushes the door open. He gives Zayn a weird look then, squinting, and cocks his head. "Where'd you get that top?"

It's the one he was wearing when he left Niall's, the American flag tank, and he swallows and says, "Uh - thrift. Um. Thrift store."

"Oh. I feel like I've seen it before," Louis says, and then shrugs. "Whatever, I'll see you tonight, Z."

He smiles. "We can catch up."

* * *

Having Louis around - having him back, having him and Liam in the same place again - should be great. And - and it is. It _is_. Zayn spends the night with them, first at the beach and then at Liam's, as they tell the same stories from their shared childhood, laughing like they haven't heard them a thousand times; as they cuddle up on Liam's bed, far too small for three grown teenagers now, and watch every Marvel movie in their possession on her laptop.

Zayn has Louis' head on his shoulder and Liam's legs propped up in his lap, and they're arguing about which superhero is best and it's almost like normal, except that the secret that he's had for years is seeping into everything now in a way that's getting harder and harder to ignore. It shoves into every crevice between them, every lull in conversation. 

He practices saying it, in his head. Imagines pausing the movie, right in the middle, and admitting everything, every single fucking thing he's kept to himself this summer. He even opens his mouth a few times, but the words won’t come out. 

On the laptop screen, Steve Rogers lets his shield fall through the ripped apart floor of a helicarrier and straight into the Potomac River; Zayn wraps a hand around Liam’s ankle, eyes falling half-shut as Louis nudges his shoulder, cheek rubbing against the sleeve of Zayn’s shirt in an attempt to find a more comfortable spot. 

“I missed this,” Liam says, sleepy, happy, and Louis makes a soft noise of agreement in response. “I feel like everything’s changing.”

And Zayn - well, he smiles, sweet and fleeting, even though his chest aches. After a moment, he says, hushed, “Yeah, I think it is.”

(They love him. He knows that. Somewhere, deep down, he _knows_ that. 

It’s just hard to think a confession won’t rewrite every part of their history with new lines.)

* * *

The Saturday before Liam leaves, Zayn's drawing in his room, sketching an outline for a new piece when there’s a knock on the door. It opens before he can ask who it is, and then Doniya sits at the edge of his bed, mindful of the art supplies he’s got strewn all over. 

He sits cross-legged to give her room, starts a new page in his book and idly begins to sketch her hands - long and thin and curled into loose fists in her lap. 

“A guy I’ve been seeing was over yesterday, when you were out with Liam and Louis,” she says, and Zayn raises a brow, but keeps his eyes on the page. 

“Guessing mom wasn’t home.”

Doniya shakes her head. “I was watching the girls.”

Zayn waits. When she doesn't continue, he gives a jerky shrug. "Okay, so?"

"They were glued to the TV,” Doniya says. “So we snuck into the kitchen."

He snorts. "Fondling your boyfriend by the leftovers, real nice, Doniya -"

"Safaa walked in and saw us," Doniya talks over him. "And I sort of freaked and told her she couldn't say anything and you know what she asked me?"

Zayn barely resists the urge to roll his eyes. "Nope."

"She asked if it was 'secret kissing, like Zayn and Niall.'"

In the space of a breath, Zayn's entire body freezes with a very pure and absolute sense of dread, like someone's poured liquid fear down his back and deep in his veins, paralyzed him in place. He’d almost - he’d almost forgotten. Safaa hasn’t mentioned it, and no one else has even -

He stares so long at his hand - poised over the sketchbook - that his eyes cross and blur. He blinks, and doesn’t look up. 

"Zayn? ...Zayn?"

Doniya reaches out, and it snaps him back into self-awareness: he swallows hard, holds his body tight as he starts up the sketch again. "She's five," he says, and hopes he sounds blasé enough. "Probably saw me hug him goodbye and just thought it was something else."

Doniya sighs. "Zayn -"

"And anyway," he interrupts, and he hates the way his voice trembles, "what were you doing bringing your boyfriend over when you were supposed to be _babysitting_ -"

"It's okay," she says over him, in a rush, "it's _okay_ , I just - I just want to know -"

"Can you please get out of my room,” he says, looking up finally. Her eyes are wide. She seems like she’s going to cry. 

Doniya licks her lips. And then says, with a sort of determination he’d respect if it were directed at anyone other than him, "It's my room, too."

A weighted silence settles between them. 

Then Zayn grabs his backpack at the edge of the bed, closes his sketchbook and stuffs it in. “Fine,” he says through gritted teeth, rising. “I’ll leave.”

“No - Zayn, _wait_ -”

She grabs his wrist as he goes, and he snatches his hand back and turns to face her, aware of the slightly ajar door, and the fact that their mother is in the living room. Doniya’s eyes are welling up now, and he doesn’t want to stick around for the rest of this - for whatever she’s going to say.

“It’s none of your fucking business,” he tells her, throat _burning_. “So stay out of it.”

He's out of the room before she can respond.

* * *

Zayn gets halfway to the bus stop before he remembers Louis is at home now. He stops in the middle of the sidewalk, in the rapidly fading light of day, and laughs, on the verge of hysterics. It turns into a gasp, and Zayn holds a hand to his chest, takes a staggering step towards the wall of the building he's in front of to hold brace himself.

He's become well-acquainted with the gnawing anxiety in his chest, this summer. He can't take a proper breath in, thinks he might be having a panic attack, and it's _this_ feeling that's tripped him up nearly his entire life, whenever he let himself think about it long enough: the constant terror of being found out gripping him like a goddamn vise, the unbearable itch under his skin that comes from having no control.

(It's a product of the walls closing in, no matter what he tries to do to stop it.)

He fumbles for his phone with shaking hands, dials Niall's number, and Niall answers with a soft, " _Hi, you_."

Zayn still can't catch his breath; it comes and goes, stuttering, and Niall's voice is laden with concern, now: " _What's wrong?_ "

"Doniya knows," he manages, and Niall swears under his breath, "and, and I - I don't want to think about it now, but I can't go to yours because of Louis, and I can't talk to him, and I can't talk to Liam, and I just." He blinks, a dizzy spell falling over him, and turns so his back is to the wall. "I don't know what to do."

" _I'm not at home anyway_ ," Niall says gently. There's music in the background, and then the sound of him shifting, a door clicking shut, the noise muting. " _I'm at the studio_."

"I'm sorry -"

" _No, just_ ," Niall lets out a sharp exhale. " _Can you get here? Is that okay with you? Like if I gave you the address would_ -"

"Text it," Zayn says, pinching the bridge of his nose. He can feel a headache coming on. "I'll, I'll be there."

" _I'd have Harry get you, but he's at Nick's_ ," Niall says, apologetic.

"It's fine. Just - address. Please."

" _Texting now_ ," Niall says, faraway, like his phone is held out so he can type. " _Do you want me to stay on the phone with you until you get here?_ "

"No, I'm - it's okay, I think," he takes a few inhales, each sounding less shaky and less shaky, and starts off for the bus again. "It’s okay.”

" _Alright_ ," Niall replies. Someone calls his name, over the line. He lets out a frustrated breath. " _Yeah, sorry, I'll be right there, hold on_ ," he says, and then to Zayn: " _Call me when you're here_."

"I will," Zayn says. He can see the stop in the distance. “I’ll see you soon."

“ _Soon_ ,” Niall repeats, and hangs up.

* * *

The sun is only just beginning to set by the time he gets to the studio, and the moment Niall sees him - waiting in the hall, eyeing the records on the wall - he scoops Zayn up into a bear hug, chin digging into his shoulder. He falls out of it just as quickly, glances a kiss first to Zayn’s cheek, and then the corner of his mouth. 

He starts to say, “Are you - ?” but Zayn shakes his head, presses another kiss to Niall’s mouth, firm. 

“Can we just - I really don’t want to think about it,” he says. “Because if I think about it I’m gonna fucking lose it, so can you -”

“Distractions, right,” Niall answers. He’s got a hand on Zayn’s neck, and he tips Zayn’s chin up a bit and smiles. “I can do that. You want to come in with me?”

“Can I?”

“Don’t really give a fuck if you _can_ , to be honest,” Niall says. He starts to head down the hallway, hand on Zayn’s wrist to tug him along. Someone calls his name from around the corner, and then a man is rounding it. His eyes flick down to where Niall is holding his wrist, and then back up like he hasn’t noticed, isn’t bothered. Zayn still discreetly pulls his hand away. 

“Hey - Julian, Zayn,” Niall waves between them. “Zayn’s gonna sit in for a bit, is that cool?”

“Yeah, whatever. We need you to run through the last song again, though - you sound a little flat on the bridge.”

Niall nods along as they walk. They follow him into a room at the end of the next hall; there’s a wall of recording equipment and mixers, and another man sitting behind the controls. In the next room is a soundbooth, with mic stand and stool set up in the middle, and one of Niall’s guitars propped up against a piano bench in the corner.

“Ben!” Niall says, and when the guy in front of the mixers turns his head, Niall gestures to Zayn. “Zayn. He’s gonna watch.” 

Ben just shrugs and turns back around to fiddle with the dials in front of him. “You wanna record another take?” he suggests, nodding to the glass separating the room from the soundbooth. 

There’s a sofa in the corner of the room. Niall steers him towards it, and then stands in front of him, hands clasped together as he rocks up on the toes of his shoes nervously. “Um, so. Don’t, like. Judge too harshly.”

“You’re amazing,” Zayn says immediately, and it’s far too dark in here, but he thinks Niall would flush at that. He seems like he is, anyway.

“Right, well, like.” Niall makes a face. “I’ve heard you sing in the shower, so.”

“I don’t sing, though, I paint,” Zayn says reasonably. “You sing. You do the - the music stuff. Go do music stuff.”

Niall tries not to laugh. “You have to promise to pretend to be impressed.”

“Don’t know if you’ve realized by now,” Zayn says, breezily, and horribly self-deprecating. “But I’m really good at pretending.”

Niall definitely doesn’t laugh at that. He smiles, but it’s sad. He starts to say, “I know you said distractions, but I - are you - ?”

“Niall,” Ben interrupts. “C’mon.”

His eyes lift to the ceiling. “Right, yeah. Sorry. One not-flat bridge, coming up.”

* * *

It lasts another couple of hours, until Niall’s voice still sounds scratchy, even after he downs a bottle of water (and a few cups of tea with honey). They’re mostly fucking around at this point, Niall fiddling around on the guitar, playing bits and pieces of songs everytime Julian or Ben asks. Zayn’s in the soundbooth with him, sat on the piano bench as quiet as he can be, watching. 

Every once in awhile, Niall will peek over this shoulder and _smile_ \- eyes disappearing into laughter lines and nose wrinkled up, just so impossibly happy that Zayn’s there next to him. Eventually, he props the guitar up on its stand, swivels a bit in his stool and asks, “Well?”

Zayn hits a couple random keys on the piano in response on the far end to his right, high and chiming. “Suitably impressed,” he answers. “It’s almost like you’ve done this before and had no reason to worry.”

“Shut up,” Niall laughs. He slips off the stool, comes closer to stand behind Zayn; he slumps forward, arms around Zayn's shoulders, rocking them, chin resting atop Zayn's head. “It’s so different, doing it solo.”

“I know, I’m just messing,” Zayn says. He taps the keys without pressing down, adds with an aimed air of nonchalance, “So they know you’re gay.”

“Yeah, think everyone does, at this point,” Niall says with a small laugh. “Not like I ever tried to hide it.”

Zayn hums something low, tilts his head to peer at Niall, then glances towards the soundproof glass to their right - Julian and Ben are talking, heads bent together over the mixers, Julian scribbling furiously onto a notepad. 

“They aren’t looking,” Niall says, straightening up just enough. “Can I kiss you?”

Zayn nods, head still tipped back awkwardly. He juts his chin a little more, closes his eyes when Niall kisses him - dry and close-mouthed, over as quick as it begins. He rights himself then, to study the piano. “Can you play this?”

“A little,” Niall says. He squeezes Zayn’s shoulders. “Hey, I have to piss, but when I get back I can teach you a song, and then we can go - oh,” Zayn can’t see his face, but he thinks Niall’s pouting, “nevermind. Louis’ over.”

Zayn’s hand crashes down clunkily onto the keys to his left. The piano gives a discordant, ominous clang, and Niall laughs again. 

“ _Niall? _”__

The speaker clicks with a muffled sound. He lets his arms fall, and looks towards the glass. Julian’s standing up now, leaning over the equipment, hand out of sight and held down on the intercom button so he can speak. “ _Think we’re done for tonight, you feel good about it?_ ”

“Yeah, man, fucking great, thanks,” Niall answers, genuine, grinning wide. “Gimme like fifteen minutes? Bathroom. And I wanted to teach Zayn a song -”

“You don’t have to,” Zayn says -

“Not the point,” Niall says, without looking down. “Hey, you guys should hear him, anyway! Got a voice like,” he doesn’t finish, just makes a _whooshing_ sound with his mouth, makes an exploding gesture at his temples with his fingers. 

He does glance down as that, teases, “Maybe you should record a song with me.”

“Go to the bathroom before you wet yourself,” Zayn says, embarrassed. Niall seems delighted. 

“Be back in two,” he says, and he’s off, the door to the soundbooth clicking shut behind as he goes. Zayn rises off the piano bench then, surveys the rooms with a long scan around. He toys with the piano again, skims his fingers over the black keys without pressing down so his fingers runs silent up the scales. 

Something clicks in the air, muted, makes his ears prick up. 

“ _Who’s the kid?_ ”

Zayn is unmoving, still bent over the piano - Julian and Ben have the speaker on, somehow, and must not be aware of it. He straightens, doesn’t turn, doesn’t want to give himself away, just skates his hand along the edge of the piano and takes idle steps towards the mic stands gathered in the corner, listening.

“ _Boyfriend? Not sure_.” That’s Julian, he thinks, without checking over his shoulder for confirmation. “ _Last time I remember hearing about anyone was that singer he toured with, Irish dude?_ ”

“ _Right, right. What happened with that?_ ”

“ _Crashed and burned_ ,” Julian says. And then dryly: “ _Got like, a third of his songs out of it, though. Good shit_.”

Zayn crosses the room, still slow, reaches out to pluck the strings of one of the guitars. “ _Hey, maybe he’ll fuck this one fuck up, too_ ,” Ben says. “ _Might get a whole sophomore album, watch. Vindictive break up revenge tracks always sell better._ ”

“ _C’mon, dude_ ,” Julian says, chiding. He laughs like he shouldn’t, like he knows better.

“ _I’m not staying here late, though. I really like the guy, but I’m not working past a time slot just so he can record a song with a charity case he's getting dick from_ \- ”

Zayn laughs mirthlessly at that. 

“ _Shit, wait, is the light on - ? You’re_ leaning _on it, Winston, move_ -”

He lifts his gaze, finds the two of them staring at him from the other side of the glass, caught out. He gives them a superficial smile, and wordlessly crosses the room to walk out. He barely gets the door open before he bumps into Niall, walking back _in_ from the bathroom.

“Hi!” Niall says cheerfully, hands on his waist. “C’mon, piano time.”

“No,” Zayn says, and it must come out short, because Niall blinks, head tilted back in surprise. “I mean - I’m. I’m tired. I think I’m gonna go.” 

Ben and Julian openly watching them from across the room, waiting for him to say something. Instead, he brushes past Niall and out into the hall, makes it around the corner before Niall grabs him by the shoulder to turn him around. “Wait -”

“Niall, I’m _tired_ ,” Zayn repeats. He stares at a spot over Niall’s shoulder instead of directly at him. He feels stuck, doesn’t want to say anything to Niall that’ll make him drop these people who’ve been with him from the beginning just because of one shitty, eavesdropped conversation. Or - or worse, maybe: he’s scared he’ll say something, and Niall won’t care at all. 

“I’m going home,” he finishes.

Concerned, Niall asks, "Are you sure?" with a hand falling to Zayn's neck; Zayn looks away and twitches his shoulder out from under Niall's touch.

Niall hand curls into a loose fist; he drops it. "Call me later?"

“Yeah,” Zayn answers, already on his way out once more. He doesn't look back. “Yeah, I'll call.”

* * *

Doniya closes the bedroom door a bit too hard when she comes in, a few days after Liam’s left for school; Zayn jumps, startled, and looks up from where he’s sitting cross-legged on his bed, the family laptop set in front of him. She stands with her back to the door like a barrier, and Zayn lowers the laptop screen. 

“I’m not leaving this room until you talk to me,” Doniya says, squaring her shoulders, leveling him with an icy stare. 

Zayn laughs, and lifts the screen back up dismissively. The brower’s open on a Google search for college scholarships, and he scrolls down, says indifferently, “You’re gonna be waiting in here forever, then,” even as his shoulders tense, even as the perpetual knot in his stomach begins to tighten. 

“Zayn, you can’t keep ignoring me like nothing even happened -”

“Watch me,” he says, eyes never leaving the screen, but -

“Does Louis know?” Doniya asks. “He - he’s been over a dozen times since he got back, and he hasn’t mentioned it. And Liam,” she stops, for just a moment. “I mean, is that - is that why you broke up?” There’s a tone of dawning realization to her words, and she sounds mad when she adds, “Does she know? Did you cheat on -"

"What the fuck, _no_ ," Zayn says, too-loud. "No, to, to all of that. No."

“You didn't even tell her," Doniya says, and it's not a question. In fact, it's damn near close to something like judgment. "Don't you think - you guys dated for like four years, you don't think she deserves to know?"

He doesn’t respond. She tries a different tact:

“God, please tell me this hasn’t been happening since you were like, in high school or something because that’s just _wrong_ -”

“Oh, fuck you, Doniya, he didn’t even like me back until this summer, he’s not a fucking _pervert_ ,” Zayn snaps, before he can stop himself, and then glances off to the side once he realizes how much he’s given away in the span of a single sentence. The muscle in his jaw jumps, and he looks down. 

“Like you back,” Doniya repeats slowly. “Right. So it’s. It’s been like this for awhile, for you?” In his periphery, he sees her study the floor, tuck a lock of hair behind her ear as her mouth twist up thoughtfully. “Is he the first -”

“Shut up,” Zayn bites out, and closes his eyes. He breathes in, and out. “Yes.”

He doesn’t look at her when the bed dips in front of him. Doniya shuts the laptop with a soft click, slides it off to the side, towards the wall. “And Louis and Liam don’t know,” she checks again. It takes a beat before Zayn shakes his head. 

“Did Niall tell you not to tell them?”

Zayn’s brows knit together, and his gaze swings to hers. “What?”

“It’s just - summer’s practically over, Zayn. I’m sure he’ll be leaving again soon, so maybe - maybe this was all just a part of a plan for him or something. Hook up with someone for a few months, no strings attached and -”

“There’s, there’s strings,” Zayn interrupts. “I’m - it’s not like that. It’s not just some summer thing.”

“Maybe not for you,” she says softly. “But... well, has he even _hinted_ that he wants to tell Louis? Louis’ family, are both of you really not going to say anything?”

“Niall’s giving me time. Space,” Zayn adds. “To make my own decisions.”

She shrugs. “Or he’s just making it the cleanest break possible, once he leaves again -”

“He’s not - he’s _helping_ me,” Zayn insists. “With like - me, and, and -” He ducks his head, combs a hand through his hair as he takes a deep breath in. This is not how he wanted to do this. How he wanted to do any of this. 

“Doniya, he’s the one who convinced me to reapply to school,” he says, and he watches surprise etch its way onto her features. “I already sent in an application, and like - even if I don’t get in,” his chest twinges at the possibility, “he’d let me stay with him even if I didn’t get in, y’know? I can still - he said.”

“Right,” Doniya says, “so his booty call'll just be a room away instead of a whole town.”

“Why are you,” Zayn pulls his legs up to his chest, lopes his arms around his shins. “Why are you trying to make him out like he's this manipulative prick? You - you’ve known him for years. He’s not that kind of person.”

Doniya smiles - the briefest lilt to the ends of her mouth, condescending in its simplicity. “I’ve always liked Niall. And maybe you’re just too caught up, but from what I remember? He never exactly had a... a one-guy-at-a-time mindset.”

Zayn’s jaw juts out. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

She doesn’t say anything, not right away. No, she waits - until Zayn lifts his head to look at her, until she knows she has his attention to say, “There is if he's fucking my brother and pretending it’s dating.”

Silence. Zayn attempts a response - opens his mouth, and closes it, and then shakes his head. Finally, he manages to tell her, in a voice so soft, “It’s different. I know it’s - this time has to be different for him.”

A short sigh leaves Doniya. “It always feels different when you’re young,” she says, and Zayn shakes his head again, more vehement this time.

“Don’t patronize me,” he says. “Don’t treat me like I’m some kid.”

“So stop acting like one,” she says. "Do you really think he’s going to - _what_ , Zayn,” she laughs, humorlessly, _frustrated_ , “be with you forever? Like he’s not just going to find someone else when he gets bored? You’re a seasonal fuck for him.”

Doniya shakes _her_ head, this time, a wrinkle between her brows. “And - and now you’re telling me you’re just gonna live with him, even if you don’t get into whatever school it is you’ve applied to? Does that even sound like you?” She lifts her hands then, like she’s washing them of the situation. “Didn't even tell any of us you were _applying_ , let alone planning on leaving regardless of an acceptance letter, but.”

“I’m,” Zayn starts, but it’s getting harder and harder to speak without his voice shaking. “I just - I don’t want to _be here_ for the rest of my life.” He sniffles, discreetly wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “You’re the one who said we should try to be better than this place. Well - I’m trying.”

“‘He’d let me stay with him even if I don’t get in,’” Doniya parrots back at him. And then laughs once more, just a dry scoff. “Zayn, you're not trying, you’re looking for reasons to sleep with your childhood wet dream whenever you want.”

“Is that it, then?” Zayn asks, and he bites down to keep his chin from trembling. “Is it because he’s a guy?”

“ _No_ , Zayn,” she says, and it’s the most insistent he’s heard her since she walked in. “No, I - of course not.” 

She pauses, and then finishes with a tinge of regret to her words, “It’s because he’s twenty-three and he’s going to drop you the first chance he gets, because finding someone who’s already sure of themselves is going to be a whole lot more fun than hanging around some kid who can’t even admit it to his sister.”

Zayn can feel the way he shuts down at that. He says, flat and emotionless, “Get out.”

Doniya doesn’t argue with him, this time around.

* * *

Zayn watches Niall’s name flash on his phone’s caller ID that night and ignores it - ignores the text after that, too, about a new apartment Niall’s looking at, close to CalArts - _Don’t worry about the rent, I’ve got it covered ;)_ the caption says under a photo of a grandiose living room with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the city, and it just makes Zayn’s chest go tight until it’s hard to breathe. He ignores the phone call after _that_ , too, a day later - stops replying to Niall, stops replying to Harry, makes sure to only hang out with Louis at his own home that’s packed to the brim with his oblivious parents and antagonistic sister and all the things he can’t say out loud. 

Niall’s twenty-fourth birthday comes and goes, and it’s only then that he sends Zayn one more text, long after Zayn’s shift ends and he’s at home in bed, a pleading _Please just tell me what I did_. Zayn burrows under the covers instead of replying, faces the wall so he can feign sleep when Doniya comes in, and he ignores _her_ , too, because -

Well, because if he can pretend long enough that nothing is wrong, then maybe he’ll actually start to believe it.

* * *

Zayn’s tossing the last of his supplies into a milk crate in his room when he hears Safaa squeal in excitement. Curious, Zayn hefts the milk crate up, opens his bedroom door and treads down the hall to the front door. He stops in his tracks when he sees Niall, standing the living room, laughing at someone Zayn’s mother has just said. 

There’s a boxed cake on the table, probably bought at one of the gourmet bakeries by the coast. Doniya’s curled up in an armchair, pretending to read even as her eyes track from Niall to Zayn and back again. 

“What’re you doing here?” Zayn blurts out.

Trisha tsks, “Zayn! Don’t be rude.”

He doesn’t say anything else, just sets his milk crate down on the sofa in time for Safaa to crash into his legs. “Zayn, look!” She points to where the dessert is set atop the coffee table, Waliyha sat in front of it, eyeing a sugar flower predatorily. “Niall said, ‘member? Bigger’n our _heads_ , Zayn, he said!”

Niall smiles fondly at her. It fades when he looks up and catches Zayn’s eye, falls to something sheepish, unnaturally subdued. “I need to talk to you,” he says, and with a glance towards Zayn’s mother, he amends casually, “About Louis.”

Zayn nudges Safaa in the direction of the cake, lifts the crate back up and then shifts out of the way as Safaa and Waliyha speed off into the kitchen instead for plates and forks. “I was about to finish up a piece.”

“I can drive you,” Niall offers. And softer: “Please?”

Doniya is watching him. So is his mother. And over the clatter of his sisters in the kitchen, Zayn says, “Let’s go.”

* * *

Zayn only speaks to give directions, and when Niall parks in the empty lot of the taquería in the fading light of day twenty minutes later, he stares at the glove compartment with his hands tucked in his lap. It’s so fucking _awkward_ in a way it hasn’t been since they first started talking again, and Zayn is acutely aware that it’s been weeks of radio silence on his part, but he can’t bring himself to talk first.

It doesn’t matter, anyway, because Niall beats him to it. 

“It’s almost dark,” he says unsurely. “How are you gonna finish it -”

“I have portable work lights,” Zayn answers shortly.

Another lengthy, strained silence settles between them. Niall turns the key to shut the engine off. “So,” he tries again. “So are you ever going to talk to me again without me having to ambush you in your living room?”

Derisively, Zayn says, “Yeah, thanks for that, by the way.”

Niall lets out a short sigh. “Did I say something? Do something? You have to tell me,” he says, turning in his seat. He shake his head and gesture with his hands, nonplussed. “I mean, is it the apartment stuff? I told you, you don’t have to worry about paying for it, it’s not like I’m hurting for cash -”

Zayn kicks at the milk crate at his feet. “I don’t _want_ you to pay for me, Jesus.”

“I’m sorry,” Niall says. “I know, you’ve said - well, we can - I mean, we can figure out something out.” He attempts to laugh, attempts to joke, “Maybe take another long weekend and - and go find something together that we can both afford.”

Zayn does look at him at that. “I just took off work, I can’t do that again.” 

“Right,” Niall says, after a beat. He laughs again, mostly at himself. “Look, Zayn, you have to help me out here. I thought - I thought things were good. I thought we were good, and then you just -”

He pauses, picks at a loose thread in the rip at the knee of his jeans. “I’m going back home, soon. Like - _home_ home. I thought maybe... maybe you’d be coming with me. And then we’d figure out the school stuff when we get there.”

“And do what?” Zayn asks, with a weary lift of his shoulders. “Fuck around until January? I can’t just _do_ that, I can’t. Doniya already thinks you’re trying to get me to abandon them -”

“I’m not telling you to _abandon_ them, Zayn, what the fuck,” Niall says sharply. “You don’t have to cut them out of your life. You’d just be _moving_ -”

“We can’t all just pick up and leave for years on end,” Zayn cuts over him. He thumps his head back against the headrest. “It was just a stupid pipe dream, anyway. Not like this would’ve worked. Not like I’d actually get into school.”

“I don’t understand,” Niall says in a rush. “I don’t - I don’t _understand_ why you can’t just let yourself have one fucking thing.”

“I did let myself have something,” Zayn says, throat burning. He can’t look at Niall. “And now my sister isn’t talking to me, and I’ve been lying to my parents and my best friends all summer because of it.”

He laughs in the stillness, and sinks in his seat. “God, do you even realize how uncomplicated your life is?”

“I don’t know, it feels pretty fucking complicated right now,” Niall says, low and blunt, but Zayn is already shaking his head. 

“No. It’s really not. It’s easy. It’s easy for you to promise things, and make all these constant, life-changing decisions because you've never had to worry about anything real a day in your life, Niall.”

He bites down on the inside of his cheek, pinches his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger when his mouth starts to involuntarily pull down in the corners. "Even coming out was easy for you. You just, like, woke up one day in the middle of high school and decided that you didn't want to have a secret anymore." His voice sounds choked, rough, and the words leave him thickly: 

"Because you loved yourself enough to know that it shouldn't have to be one."

Zayn laughs again, even as his eyes well up. The car feels stifling, suddenly, and he shoves open the passenger side door, hops out and grabs his crate. The driver’s side door opens, slams shut, and footsteps fall behind him, but Niall still doesn’t respond.

It’s too dark out now, so Zayn starts to set up the free-standing work lights instead; he kneels on the ground, wipes at his eyes with the neck of his tank and angles one until it looks like it’ll hit the spot on the stuccoed wall that he wants to touch up. Without looking up, he asks, "Do you know how… how _bitter_ that makes me feel?" 

He sniffs, and yanks the second work light out of the crate, pushes himself up to cross to the other end of the piece. Niall gets in his way, deliberate, hands curling around his elbows to hold him in place while Zayn rambles on. “Niall, I hate - I _hate_ feeling like that about you, I really do, but -"

He looks down. "I can't help it. I don't know if my dad will only tolerate it when it's not relevant to someone he loves. I don't know if my mom will cry because she'll think it's some _hurdle_ I'll have to jump over. I don't know how or what they'll tell my cousins and my aunties and my uncles and my _grandparents_ , and, and which of them will ignore me at family parties and which of them will talk shit about me behind my back under the pretense of being concerned and it just." He sniffles, lets out a breath and inhales shakily. "It fucking. _Sucks_."

He hasn’t turned either of the work lights on yet, and they stand there in the darkness, Zayn clutching the second portable in his hands. He takes another breath, deeper, this time, and swipes a fist under his nose, a hand roughly over his cheeks. 

And he realizes something then that has his shoulders drooping, that makes exhaustion settle in his bones like a dead weight. "I can't do this," he says.

When Nialls finally speaks, it’s with a resigned, "Do what?" like he already knows the answer.

Zayn smiles sadly. "Leave," he gestures to the car, to the whole fucking world outside of this moment. "Be with you. It’s too much. Things were just - they were better before."

“You’d rather,” Niall’s voice cracks. He clears his throat. “You’d rather go back to lying to _yourself_ than to other people?”

“I never wanted to be like this,” Zayn says, rasping. His expression crumples. “And if I can’t even be around you in public without feeling ashamed then maybe I don’t deserve to have it, anyway.”

Niall makes a noise - a soft, sad sound, stuck in his throat. He reaches to palm Zayn’s jaw, and Zayn turns his head instead. It takes a bit for Niall to collect himself. He says, "I. Um,” and pauses, opens his mouth to speak before he presses his lips into a thin, quivering line instead. His eyes are glassy. 

"I'm - I'm sorry, if I, uh. If I ever made things feel harder,” he says, shaky. “I really am. But I - I understand. I do. So."

His composure fractures for a single, solitary moment before he schools it and stares at something off to the side. He drops his arms and gives Zayn room. 

"You should go," Zayn murmurs, work light held tight to his chest, and Niall nods, still refusing to look at him.

Zayn turns away, doesn’t look back as Niall traverses across the parking lot, as the driver’s side door shuts, as the engine turns over in a sudden rush. Niall’s tires screech as he speeds down the street, around the corner and out of sight, and Zayn lets out a half-sob then, with this _hurt_ unraveling in his chest. 

He turns the work lights on, crouches down between them to open a can of black paint and lifts it up with hands gripping the sides. He stares at his piece, and imagines splashing the entire can across the wall. It’d ruin it, smear ugly streaks of paint over it, warp it beyond recognition. 

He doesn’t, though. 

Zayn sets the paint back down and slumps onto the cracked concrete, legs crossed with the can in front of them. He gives himself ten minutes. No more, no less - ten minutes to catch his breath, ten minutes to let the wetness clinging to his lashes dry, ten minutes to wish he was literally anybody, _anybody_ else. 

Then he hauls himself up, and gets to work.

* * *

Rochelle asks him meet with her that weekend. Nothing formal, she says, just wants to have a quick chat, so Zayn makes the trek to CalArts alone, in his least paint splattered top and newest pair of jeans. Zayn’s name is on a list at the receptionist’s desk, when he gets there, and the woman smiles kindly at him and gestures to the door to her right. “Go on through,” she says. “She’s waiting for you.”

“Thanks,” Zayn says, and pushes the heavy oak door open. Rochelle’s office is warm and inviting, with art on the walls and a floor to ceiling bookshelf at one end. On her desk is a framed photo of drawing, Zayn assumes, her five year old has done, if the painstaking, endearingly crooked _i love U mommy_ is any indication.

She smiles when she sees him, gestures for him to close to the door behind him. He does, and sits at one of the chairs in front of the desk, already fidgeting from nerves. 

“Hi, Zayn,” Rochelle says, pleased. “Can I just tell you again how happy I am that you applied?”

“Um,” he shifts in his seat, gives her a small smile in return. “Thanks.”

She has a stack of papers in front of her, and she gathers them up and taps them until they even out, tucks them into a manila folder and sets it down. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to draw this out,” she says, and Zayn laughs, and breathes a little easier. “I wanted you to come in so I could tell you that you’ve landed an interview this month with the director of the Art program here.”

“What?” Zayn asks, disbelieving, and Rochelle nods. 

“Not everyone _gets_ an interview, but it’s usually one of the last steps in the application process if you do. Typically, it means you have a high chance for consideration.”

“Uh, so,” Zayn shakes his head. “Sorry, what - so what does that mean?”

“It’s not necessarily a _hundred_ percent guarantee but from what I’ve heard, they were very excited by your work. And were _extremely_ happy to see that you had applied again.” She smiles even wider now. “And I think it’s safe to say as long as this interview goes well, you’re in.”

Zayn sits back in his seat with a soft thump, the tension in his back and shoulders gone in in an instant. “I - really?”

“Really, Zayn.” Rochelle cants her head. “This is still something you want, right?”

It’s the way she says it that has Zayn studying his lap instead of answering right away. He asks, careful, “You talked to Niall, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” she says simply. She doesn’t continue until Zayn looks up at her once more. “Zayn, I think your family would not want you to give this up again.”

He makes a face. “My - my older sister -”

“Sometimes the people you love say the wrongs things because they think they’re protecting you,” Rochelle interrupts, gently. “Don’t let anyone stop you from doing this.”

“Even if,” he sighs, because it’s the same conversation he’s had, over and over again, and the ending never changes. “Even if I get in, I can’t afford it. It’s what happened last time.”

“Well, you didn’t have _me_ in your corner, last time.” Rochelle says confidently. She opens up the manila folder, takes out a single sheet with a long, handwritten list on it. “You can get grants and scholarships for just about anything, these days, Zayn - you’re not left-handed, are you?” she asks with a lift of an eyebrow, and when Zayn nods, she frowns thoughtfully and crosses something off near the bottom of the list. “Thought I’d check, first.”

She hands the list over. “Some of those you can send in through the mail. Some are electronic, which will obviously be quick and easier. There’s,” she leans forward, points down the list with the end of a pen, “you see, these? Um - did either of your parents go to college?”

He shakes his head, says in a daze, “No, my mom - my mom’s a lunch lady. Dad drives a cab, picks up odd jobs with this construction company sometimes.”

“Okay, well, see,” she taps the third one down. “There’s one right there, first generation to go to school - did your sister do any of this?”

“She got a full ride,” Zayn says, and stares at the list until his eyes cross. He blinks. “Are these all really - ?”

“I mean, you might not get _all_ of them, you know, but some is better than none. There’s a few fooor,” she scoots up so she can read the list upside down. “Let’s see - if you come from an Asian background. There are also some for Muslim students, mixed race students, um... here, these ones are all low-income, high academic achievement based.”

“What are these?” he asks, pointing to the ones hastily scrawled at the bottom of the page.

Rochelle pauses, and sits back in her seat. “Those are... LGBTQIA scholarships.”

Zayn folds the paper in quarters, just to have something to do. He laughs uneasily. “That’s, um. That’s a lot of letters.”

“Well, there are a lot of people in the world,” she says warmly. He meets her eye, and she shrugs. “Not all of us fall into categories so easily.”

“Us,” Zayn repeats. Rochelle just smiles. 

She asks, “Do you want to try those, too?”

“Um... yeah,” Zayn says, folded up paper held tight in his fist. “Yeah, I do.”

There’s a knock at the door then; Zayn doesn’t turn, but he hears the receptionist from earlier says, “Sorry - your next appointment is here, should I tell him to wait?”

“Five more minutes,” Rochelle answers, and the door clicks shut again. Zayn can feel her eyes on him, and he smooths out the paper in his lap so he won’t have to look up when she asks, “You okay?”

He nods.

“Right,” Rochelle says, determined. “I’ve got like, five minutes to do this so - I know you know this already, but I’m going to say it anyway because it bears repeating: there will always be people who will see the neighborhood you’re from, or the way your family looks, or which God you pray to, or who you fall in love with, and they will immediately write you off as less than -”

“What’re you gonna tell me,” Zayn says quietly. “That it’s my job to prove them wrong?”

“No.” 

Zayn lifts his head at that. 

“You don’t need to prove them wrong,” Rochelle tells him. “They _are_ wrong. So rub it in their face. Tell them to go fuck themselves. Let them know they can’t dictate your happiness for you. Or your success.”

“You’re being really nice to someone who broke up with your friend,” Zayn mumbles, and he watches her shake her head, slow, leaning forward in her seat once more, like she needs to Zayn to get this, more than anything else:

“What happened between you two is none of my business. I guess I’m just tired of seeing kids with similar backgrounds to mine giving up before they even start because they grow up in a world that constantly tells them what little chance they have. So I’m just telling you that you can do it. Whatever it is. Whether it’s - whether it’s leaving the town you’ve lived in all your life, or coming out, or finally being okay with who you are.”

He’s nothing less than floored as he stares at Rochelle, to overcome to speak for the fear his voice might break. The corners of Rochelle’s mouth lift, sweetly reassuring. “You might be surprised by how much support you actually have, if you just ask for it,” she says then. “I’ll be here for you, for whatever you need, Zayn. And I know we’ll find a way to make this work.” 

She pushes the manila folder his way. 

“I promise.”

* * *

Zayn smells Louis before he sees him. 

Or rather, he smells the one hitter full of bud Louis’ got tucked between his index and middle finger, and the smoke he blows out in rings as he lifts his chin in hello. He’s sitting on the front steps of Zayn’s house, and the only reason Zayn isn’t yelling at him yet is because he knows for a fact his younger sisters aren’t home.

“You know if my mom shows up and sees that, she’s gonna kill you.”

“Almost done, anyway,” Louis answers. Zayn climbs the steps, reaches for the one hitter when Louis hands it, and a lighter, over. “How was work?”

Zayn inhales, holds the smoke in and frowns, thumbing down the hand holding the lighter. He takes another short hit, cashing it, and sets the piece down in the space between them before exhaling. “Shit,” he adds, laughing around the smoke. “It was shit.”

“Mm.” 

Zayn stares, nonplussed. Louis doesn't look pissed, not exactly, but Zayn can read him like an open fucking book and there's _something_ there that’s quietly serious. “Are you okay, Lou?” 

Louis frowns fleetingly. "You been good, bro?" he asks in response, and Zayn rubs uselessly at the marker stains on his hands, shrugs a shoulder.

"Yeah, I mean - yeah. Yeah, I'm great."

“Found one of your sketchbooks, at mine,” Louis says then, apropos of nothing, and he reaches behind him to grab it, lifts it up so Zayn can see. “Left my charger at school, went to go check if Niall had an extra one in his room and saw this on the bedside table.”

Zayn laughs. Or tries to. "Oh - yeah. Right. Probably forgot it there, um. I had to get one of my old skateboards at the beginning of summer, must've brought the sketchbook with and forgot.”

"Yeah," Louis says distractedly. He sits up straighter. Zayn chews on his bottom lip, waiting for the other shoe to drop as Louis runs his fingers along the edges of the sketchbook. "Thing is, you’ve left a lot of stuff there? Stuff I don’t really remember you leaving _before_. When we were still in high school, I mean. Your paint supplies. Your sketchbooks. Your _clothes_ -" he looks at Zayn at this, a perplexed expression working a wrinkle into his forehead. He scrubs a hand through his hair, leans back to drop the sketchbook onto the porch.

Zayn fights the urge to hunch in on himself. He digs the blunt nails of his fingers into his knees so hard it hurts.

"Zayn, are you,” Louis shifts, glancing around the block, and lowers his voice: “Are you hooking up with Niall?"

There it is. 

Zayn means to play it off. He really does. But when he opens his mouth to dispel, to defend, nothing comes out. For months - years - he’s had this instinctive reaction to _lie_ and for the first time ever, his mind is blank. His mouth shuts, and he gives a small, speechless shake of his head and shrugs. 

What can he even say, at this point? 

Louis laughs at that - short, disbelieving - and lets his head drop. "Jesus Christ."

With a grimace, Zayn's eyes fall shut briefly. "Louis…"

"When I came back, that first day,” Louis interrupts, turning in to face him, now. “That was you he was trying to hide. Right? So - so Harry knows, too?"

An answer doesn’t seem necessary; he laughs, again, razor-edged and biting. “You know, I - you barely said a thing to me all summer until I came home. And I thought you were, uh. I thought maybe you just didn’t wanna talk to me anymore -"

“I was just - _busy_ ,” Zayn tries, and he flinches when Louis whispers:

“Apparently. Busy fucking my step-brother.”

Zayn doesn’t reply, just hugs his legs and buries his face against his knees. He hears Louis say, “You’re my best friend,” and then, in a voice no higher than a murmur: “Why didn’t you tell me?”

And that - well. Zayn finally looks up at that, voice cracking as he asks, “When was I supposed to bring it up, Lou?” His chest picks up - feels like he’s overdosing on adrenaline or something, because he can’t help it anymore, can’t stop the words from pouring out, voice rough, as low as he can speak and still be heard: “Like I was supposed to call you and tell you, what, ‘Hey, I saw _Iron Man_ for the hundredth time today, and _by the way_ I had Niall’s dick in my mouth this morning’ -”

Louis blanches. “That’s not what I _mean_ -”

“Then what _do_ you mean?” Zayn ducks his head again, links his hands together at the nape of his neck and says, muffled, “I don’t - just tell me what you mean.”

When Louis doesn’t say anything, Zayn lifts his head - he’s wide-eyed, overwhelmed, and he hunches in his seat on the top step, elbows planted on his knees. “I love Niall,” Louis starts, rubbing at his nape. “I know he and I joke around a lot about the, like, step-brother stuff, but." He clicks his tongue, cants his head to the side. 

"Zayn, I know you know I love him. So fucking much, dude. He’s my _brother_. Doesn't matter if he likes men or women or anyone in between. It’s _never_ mattered.” 

Another lengthy pause. There’s a pang in Zayn’s chest that turns sharp when Louis’ darts a glance up at him to finish: 

“Did you really think I wouldn’t feel the same way about you?”

"It's not - it wasn’t about how _you_ felt," Zayn argues, and then backtracks. "I mean, not - not exactly - I can't," he digs the heels of his palms into his eyes, hard, until they stop prickling painfully. "I can't explain it, Lou. I really - I really can't."

Louis taps his feet against the steps, clears his throat and says, “Try.”

They stare at each other for a long beat. And Rochelle had told him, _You might be surprised_ , so maybe he - maybe it’s time he reached out. Maybe it won’t be so hard, if he just gets it off of his chest, little by little.

It takes Zayn a full minute to breathe without feeling like he’s going to throw up, and then another before his hands stop shaking. “I’m,” he starts, and stops. Counts to ten and tries again.

“I...”

He holds a breath, lets it out buried under a laugh, and his head’s screaming at him like it has a dozen - a hundred times - before, but even now, he can’t make the words push past his mouth. Can’t make them crawl up his throat, drag them kicking and screaming out in the open for anyone to twist them up when he’s done everything he’s could since he can remember to shove it all down like it didn’t exist.

“This summer - Lou, this summer was the first - it was the first time I couldn’t just make it go away. He came back and I just. I got so tired of pretending.”

In a small voice, Louis asks, “Pretending?”

Zayn can’t quite manage to look at him. “Niall was - there’s never been another guy before him, not, not in like. A real, visceral way, and I’ve never - not until -”

It’s like talking through a mouthful of sand, forcing the words out bit by bit, but he’s fucked himself up so much this summer, and he just can’t hold it in anymore. And it’s not to prove a point to Doniya, and it’s not because he’s backed into a corner. It’s not for Niall, either. It’s not for - not for anyone but him. 

"I kept thinking, you know, if I buried it deep enough it would just. _Stay_ that way, and I’d be normal. But I’m... I think - the thing is, I think I’m..." He sucks in his bottom lip, gnaws on peeling skin for a moment. Laughs, and looks down. 

"I think I'm gay.” 

A pause, and he amends with words that do not contain a single tremble: 

“I know I’m gay.”

There. And he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry - it’s an entire lifetime of buildup for one declaration, years spent agonizing over how and why and when and right times and wrong times and who will see him differently and who won't and whether or not certain loves really are unconditional and now it’s out and he can’t put it back or place it in a neat little box that he won’t ever have to look at. It’s out, _he’s_ out, and that’s. 

That’s it. 

That’s all there is to it.

Zayn darts a glance at Louis when Louis says nothing in response, and asks, “Are you - I mean, I know you know about him, but - are you surprised?”

Louis gives a small shrug, at a loss. “I don’t know, dude. Do you need me to be?”

“No,” Zayn says quietly. “It’s just. It almost feels like there should be fanfare or something. ‘Hey, Zayn stopped bathing in the stench of his own self-loathing long enough to finally figure out the whole gay thing, congrats.’”

“I can pay Harry to write a song for you made up entirely of dirty lyrics. I’m sure it’ll be like his life’s calling -”

Zayn’s laughing before Louis even gets the rest of the sentence out, and he actually _is_ crying now; he presses his fingers into his eyelids, sniffs and wipes the tears away. 

“And you are normal," Louis adds after, with an unbearable kindness to his words that makes it hard to look at him. He hesitates, and, "The part about it having to do with my _step-brother_? _That_ part is weird as shit."

"Don't," Zayn says. He sniffs again, rubs at his chest. 

Louis knocks him in the shoulder, keeps his weight there. “I’m sorry. That you felt like you couldn’t tell anyone. I don’t get why, but I guess it’s not my thing to get. Can’t get mad at you for keeping something that important to yourself. But promise me something?”

“What?”

“Never, ever tell me what Niall’s like in bed,” Louis says solemnly, and Zayn laughs, even though it hurts. 

“Won’t have to worry about that, anyway,” he says, scuffing his boot against the stairs. “We broke up.”

Louis pauses, and then says _Ooooh_ , like all the mysteries of the universe have been solved, all at once. “So that makes more sense now, yeah.”

“What does?”

“ _Well_ ,” Louis knocks him in the shoulder again, a bit harder. “He’s been wandering around the mansion - pretty much everywhere, actually - like a tragic little shit for weeks now. He wouldn’t tell me what was wrong, so I just assumed maybe that solo album wasn’t panning out like he thought it would. Turns out it’s you.”

Zayn manages, somehow, to keep his voice steady when he says, “He’ll get over it.”

“Maybe,” Louis says. “But I don't think he wants to. ...Do you miss him?”

“Yeah,” he admits. “Like - a lot.”

“So talk to him,” Louis says. “I don’t know, maybe - maybe you still have a lot of shit to work out, but like. What’s the harm?”

When Zayn stayssilent, Louis sighs, and tells him sternly, “Listen, Malik, it’s pretty fucking rare for my step-brother to act all like, genuinely heartbroken, and I don’t know how to fix it. Do you really want his album to have a Sam Smith bawl your eyes out, heart-stomped-on, neverending cesspool of sadness vibe? Because I have to admit that’s not really Niall, y’know?”

Zayn pulls a face. Louis slings an arm across Zayn’s shoulders, squeezes his bicep. “I’m kidding, I know this isn’t about the album. It’s about you, and whatever - whatever you’ve been dealing with. I do get that, at least. But look on the bright side,” he says, and Zayn snorts at that. 

“There’s a bright side?”

“Yeah. You came out,” Louis says, patting his cheek. “You did something completely fucking terrifying, and you’re still here.”

He pulls Zayn in so their foreheads touch. 

“Everything after this is gonna be a fucking breeze.”

* * *

It takes him another handful of days to actually text Niall. When he does - on break at the craft store - it’s a simple, _Can u meet me by the taquería piece today_ and he thinks Louis might onto something about the Sam Smith thing, because Niall texts back _You seriously want to meet where you broke up with me ?_

Zayn dials his number instead of replying, and it takes more than a few rings, but Niall eventually answers with a tired, “ _Hey_.” 

Zayn hasn’t heard his voice in weeks. He aims a lazy kick at the brick wall of the craft store.

“Are you at home?” 

“ _No_ ,” Niall says, clipped, and doesn’t offer up anything else. 

“Can you?” Zayn asks, hesitant. “Please, just. One hour. That’s all.”

“ _What could you possibly tell me that you haven’t already?_ ”

“I told Louis I was gay,” Zayn says, hushed, and there’s a few moments of stunned silence on Niall’s end before he says, “ _You did?_ ”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“ _No, I - no_ ,” Niall says. And Zayn doesn’t think he’s imagining the smile in Niall’s voice when he adds, “ _That’s really great, Zayn. I’m happy for you. I - really._ ”

“So can I see you?” Zayn tries again. “Like I said, just - just an hour.”

Niall thinks this over. Then he says, “ _I can get there around eight_.”

“Perfect,” Zayn says.

* * *

Zayn’s late. 

The Jeep stalls more than once - by the time he gets there, it’s nearly half past. Niall’s Navigator is parked in the lot, but Zayn finds him sitting on the curb across the street, knees pulled up to his chest. His shoulders tense when Zayn sits next to him, but he doesn’t pull away. Zayn takes it as a small win.

“Hi.” 

“Hey,” Niall says, still staring at the restaurant. He nods at it. “Did you know about this?”

Zayn looks at the stuccoed wall of the taquería, at the remnants of his piece, barely visible under a hasty, sloppy cover up job. He’d seen it, a few days after the break up. It’d sort of seemed like a sign, at the time. Now it just feels like a reason to start over.

“The city painted over it,” Niall says, frowning. “You worked so hard on it.”

Zayn rips a dandelion out from the concrete. "It happens sometimes. This kind of art isn’t always meant to last."

"But you'll make new ones," Niall says, and it's not really a question, but Zayn answers anyway.

"If I have time."

"Why wouldn't you have time?"

"I, um," Zayn tears the dandelion off its stem, tries to say as nonchalant as he possibly can, "I have an interview at CalArts on Monday. Four PM. Rochelle said nothing's finalized yet, but if I - if it goes well, then. I'll - I'll be starting school next year."

Niall looks like he wants to smile, but he's not sure if he's allowed just yet. "Yeah?" he asks, carefully, and Zayn nods.

"I'm trying not to psych myself out like I usually do. Keep thinking about all the shit that can go wrong, all the shit I still haven't worked out about it, like," he falters, and swallows, "like where I'll live, and, and stuff like that, but I guess I. Um. Have time to figure it out. Spring semester doesn't start until January."

Niall is quiet, for a long while. And then - hesitant, soft, he says, "Well, the - I mean. The offer still stands if you," he clears his throat, "I _do_ still have an actual apartment in LA -"

"I don't think that's a good idea," Zayn interrupts, gently, and in his periphery, he can see Niall look down.

"Why not? We don't - we don't have to -"

"I think it'd be really distracting, and I don’t. I just don’t think I’m ever gonna be comfortable with you paying for things I could never afford in a million years.”

“Won’t be saying that when you’re a famous artist,” Niall says, and when Zayn lets out a light laugh, he asks, “Why would it be distracting?”

“I don’t know,” Zayn says, and takes a brave, little breath in. “It’d probably be pretty hard to get me to go to class when I could just be with you all day instead.”

“Zayn.” Niall says his name like it pains him, and when Zayn glances at him, his eyes are shut tight. “You can’t say things like that, that’s not fair.”

“You know how I said you make me feel less scared?” Zayn asks him, and Niall opens his eyes and nods miserably, hands holding onto the curb on either side of him. “I lied. Sort of.”

He huffs out a laugh. “Niall, you fucking terrify me. Because I see all this, like. Possibility with you. Like if I could...” he shrugs, “if I could figure out how to be myself then everything else would just fall into place. And it’d - it’d force me to make these _choices_ that I never even let myself _think_ about since I first realized that I - I probably wasn’t straight.”

Zayn pulls his knees up, too. “It was a lot easier to ignore, before you kissed me. And I know,” he heaves a sigh, “I know I’m still not entirely okay, and I might still get uncomfortable with how much money you can spend without thinking, or with, with you touching me in public, but. I really want to try.”

He can see Niall’s Adam’s apple jump when he swallows hard, and Zayn, haltingly, drops a hand onto Niall’s. They’re hidden between both sets of legs, should anyone come down the block, but Zayn heart hammers a pounding beat in his chest, anyway. 

Slowly, Niall’s hand turns over. He slips his fingers between Zayn’s, and holds on.

* * *

Zayn goes home alone that night. Niall doesn’t kiss him goodbye - he still seems a little raw, like he’s not sure Zayn will take this night back, too - but it’s okay. It might be what they need, after an entire summer of diving headfirst into something so new for the both of them. 

Doniya’s in the living room, eyeing him as he walks through the door. “Was that Niall?” she asks, and he nods. He starts to wonder if his parents are within earshot, but then realizes a part of him genuinely doesn’t care. 

It’s not until he’s almost past the living room that he hears her say, “I still think you’re making a mistake.”

He slumps a shoulder against the wall, studying the hardwood beneath his feet. “I know.”

“He’s just going to hurt you.”

Zayn meets her gaze head on, then.

“You’re wrong,” he says.

* * *

Zayn fiddles with the collar of his button up, resists the urge to comb a hand through his hair in case he’ll mess it up. The building his meeting is in towers in front of him, menacing, and he wipes sweaty palms against his hips and gets a soft, laughing, “Relax,” in response.

Niall stands a bit behind him, arms crossed. 

“Can you just - ” Zayn fidgets, “can you like, walk me to the door? I just - I feel like if I do it by myself, I’ll pass out.”

He laughs, weakly, and it trails off as he gives Niall a little smile. Niall just glances down, mouth quirking at the ends; he looks up at Zayn and nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, of course I will.”

They nearly make it. Then Zayn, on the verge of _actually passing out_ , turns around, so abrupt and without warning that he bumps into Niall. His hands immediately reach out to steady Zayn, and they stay there a moment too long, settled on Zayn’s body like it’s muscle memory. 

Niall squeezes his hips, and then his waist, skates a hand up until he’s adjusting the collar of Zayn's button up. His thumb brushes along the line of Zayn’s throat, presses in at the fluttering pulse point under his jaw. “Are you ready for this?” he asks, eyes flicking up towards the building behind Zayn. 

“No,” Zayn says. 

Niall stuffs his fists into the front pockets of his jeans, so his shoulders hunch around his ears. “Are you nervous?”

He chokes out a laugh at that. “Is that a real question?”

Niall drops his head with a sigh. “No, I guess it’s not. But you’ll do great. They’ll love you.”

“I hope so.”

There’s a pause, and Niall laughs, uneasily, and maybe somewhat hesitant, too. “Trust me." He can’t seem to look Zayn in the eye. “If they -”

He stops, scrubs a hand through his hair, eyes squinting against the sunlight. “If they see a - a tenth of what I see in you, they’ll, um," he visibly swallows, inhales deep as if to steel himself, and cups Zayn under the chin before letting his hand drop. 

He finishes fondly, "Zayn, they’ll love you.”

Zayn’s smile is fleeting, but it’s real. “You know, I was thinking. Since you’re already here, and if you’re free later," he pauses, and looks down, laughing. "Maybe after this we could, um. Get a bite to eat.”

Niall studies him. “Like a date?”

He nods. 

“Yeah,” Niall replies, after a beat, and he tries very hard not to smile. “Yeah, that. We can do that.”

“Cool,” Zayn grins then, can feel the bridge of his nose wrinkling, and he aims a thumb back at the building. “So, I should. I should go. Now.”

“Okay,” he says, and Zayn gets about as far as a turn and two and a half steps before Niall catches his wrist. “Wait, hold on -”

“It’s almost four,” Zayn says, and Niall nods, a touch too quick.

“Yeah, I know, but I have,” his smile has more weight to it, now, “I have one more question.”

“What is it?” Zayn asks faintly, and Niall licks his lips, shoves his hands into his pockets again, and hops up anxiously on the the toes of his shoes.

He says, “Are you happy?” and, well. 

Zayn still hasn’t told his parents about school. His relationship with Doniya at the moment is tenuous at best. One day, soon, he’s going to have to tell Liam everything. And he will occasionally - but with less and less frequency - wonder why he has to be so different, but.

But he feels like himself. And he knows who he is. And maybe it’s a little messy and imperfect, but since when is life anything other than that? 

Niall watches him openly, teetering on the edge of hope; he has the smallest wrinkle between his brows, and sunburn on his nose leftover from the last days of true summer heat, and Zayn wonders if this is what he always looks like when he’s in love with someone. 

There are dozens and dozens of people around them - billions of people in this _world_ with separate lives and separate problems of their own that have so fucking little to do with Zayn and whoever he chooses to love _back_ , and if he’s going to stop caring so much about what they think, he’s going to start now.

The first kiss is off-center and clumsy, with Zayn surging forward. The second comes a whole lot easier; Niall makes a soft, dazed sound in his throat and sways in, almost like his knees are buckling. He wraps his arms low around Zayn’s waist, holding him so close his back bows.

Zayn smooths his hands up Niall’s chest until his palms curve over Niall’s shoulders and pushes gently, just enough to break them apart with a hushed, trembling laugh. He breathes this moment in for as long as he can, and when he opens his eyes, Niall is staring right back at him like he's never been more amazed. He laughs, too - quiet, surprised out of him - and touches Zayn's cheek, very gently.

And Zayn, finally, has an answer:

"I'm getting there."


End file.
